Community Corner
A Profile in Courage: Kevin Reynolds - Part 2
After a staph infection ravaged his body and strokes took his speech, former college football player Kevin Reynolds had to learn to walk and talk again.
The Long Road Back: Kevin Reynolds of Grayslake, a former college football player in Wisconsin, had been the epitome of strength and health. Then a series of severe health problems changed everything. He developed a staph infection in his heart and underwent a heart valve transplant. Then he had 20 strokes and the staph infection spread to his brain, taking his ability to walk and talk.
After a touch and go surgery to stop the staph infection, Kevin and his family found the courage to go on thanks to support from friends and neighbors in Grayslake.
The relentless staph infection had come back with a vengeance and attacked Kevin Reynold's heart. As the infection broke up and traveled through his bloodstream, it attacked his brain and incapacitated him. The emboli damaged the left half of his brain which controls the right side of his body and speech.
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Kevin's parents, Dave and Jody Reynolds, were then faced with a mind-numbing dilemma concerning their son. Surgery was needed to halt the deterioration to Kevin's heart, but the neurologist feared that the surgery itself could do even more damage to Kevin's brain, if he even survived the surgery.
Jody said that the only way they got through that time was through strong community support.
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"People held prayer services at their homes for us," she said with gratitude.
Kevin survived the surgery, and moved on to intensive physical and speech therapy at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and RIC Northbrook. RIC has been ranked the number one rehabilitation center in the U.S. since 1991 by US News & World Report.
In mid-February of 2011, Kevin started walking again - just about 10 to 20 steps - with the aid of a four-pronged cane.
"I would take him to the Condell building in the winter to practice. We had a nice long hallway to work in," said his dad, Dave. "By mid-March, Kevin was using a single cane. He progressed to walking on a treadmill without the harnesses to keep him upright."
"Whenever I said it was time to go to therapy, Kevin never said that he didn’t want to go," said Dave.
"Whatever my physical therapist asked me to do I did without question," said Kevin.
"If he was asked to do 10 reps of anything, Kevin would try to do 15," said Dave.
"He has never complained about what happened to him or what he’s going through," said Jody. "Not once. Ever."
Progress has been slow, but steady for Kevin Reynolds. His physical therapist asked him to set goals. He rose to the challenge and set ambitious goals:
- I want to be able to run again (he’s already walking up to two miles now);
- I want to drive a car;
- I want to finish my college education;
- I want to become a high school math teacher and coach.
"All of these are attainable," said Dave.
Dave and Jody recently took their son to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland to find out what’s wrong with Kevin’s immune system.
They said that Kevin’s is a rare and unique case that matches no other known immune deficiency. The NIH will run a full test over his immune system, rebuild it and see if they can come up with what’s missing through stem cell regeneration.
Kevin is currently seeing three different therapists once a week and taking a class at the .
"Everything seems a little fast paced," Kevin said recently. "I feel good now."
Theresa Beckman will be taking over the home physical therapy with Kevin, said his parents. She wants to get him into a pool to build up his strength to run again.
The doctors didn’t know if he would be able to talk again, but Kevin has made tremendous progress.
"It will be 4 to 5 years before I know how much of my abilities I can recover," said Kevin. "The neurologist said that I will never be 100 percent of what I was in October of 2010, but I am just trying to get 99.9 percent of it back."
It is not a matter of if Kevin will reach that 99.9 percent, but only a matter of when. His courage, determination and perseverance are indomitable. Obstacles to this incredible young man are pushed aside like a rushing defensive lineman or flattened like a blitzing linebacker. The power of prayer, the love of family and the support of a community are all elements in the success story of Grayslake’s own Kevin Reynolds.
