NC Restaurateur of the Year Michael Thor is a warrior and an inspiration. This is from a February 7, 2020, profile by The News & Observer:
More than four years after a motorcycle crash derailed his cooking career and nearly killed him, Michael Thor is North Carolina’s Restaurateur of the Year.
This week, the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association held its annual gala in Raleigh and honored leaders in the state’s hospitality industry. Thor and Whiskey Kitchen co-owner Jeff Mickel were named this year’s Restaurateurs of the Year.
In November 2015, Thor was knocked from his motorcycle by a driver merging into his lane. The crash made him a quadriplegic, but after years of therapy he’s slowly regaining movement in his arms and legs.
Over the weekend Thor posted on Instagram this plea for help:
Sit-ups
25!!! However, this isn’t a happy post. While gyms remain closed, some of the clients @nextstep_raleigh [NexStep, North Carolina Non-Profit Paralysis Recovery Center] are deteriorating. Most of us do not have the ability or the help to continue physical therapy at home. Most do not have the support to push them physically, so this nearly 3 month hiatus has caused many to regress back to the physical state they were in before they started coming to NextStep, and others are worse off yet.
Without therapy to help move and stretch, many of us end up sitting in the same position for 8, 10, 12 hours straight, causing our bodies to conform to that position. Muscles and joints tighten and lock and end up taking more and more work for someone else to move them, let alone to move them ourselves.
It was our hope that phase 2 would allow for the #sci rehab center to open up, but that didn’t happen as they are legally a “gym” and not a “physical therapy” center. I have repeatedly called and emailed both @roycoopernc [NC Gov. Roy Cooper] and @maryannforraleigh [Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin] to see if exceptions could be made, but have not received responses from either of their offices. If y’all would please share this to see if we can’t get their attention, myself, but more importantly the dozens of people living with paralysis that NEED @nextstep_raleigh to reopen will be eternally grateful!
I am incredibly lucky, unlike most, to have @rahktoro, my biggest advocate and motivator, who continually pushes me to be better and get stronger! I don’t want to think about what this quarantine would be like without her. She keeps me productive and active, and has managed to stave off the mundanity of being cooped up all day every day, while helping me stay in shape. Love her so very much! Thanks in advance for the shares
#quadrapeligic #scirehab #quadlife #spinalcordinjury #rehab #rehabilitation #cripple #cripplerehab #scilife #powerchair #wheelchair#gettingoutofthiswheelchair
To recap:
Gov. Cooper’s orders closing gyms — and keeping them closed until possibly late June — also closed and is keeping closed a Raleigh paralysis recovery center (NextStep Raleigh) legally defined as a gym.
The paralysis center’s clients aren’t people worried about getting pudgy without their “gym fix”; they’re people whose recovery efforts are being given significant setbacks. As Thor says,
Most of us do not have the ability or the help to continue physical therapy at home. Most do not have the support to push them physically, so this nearly 3 month hiatus has caused many to regress back to the physical state they were in before they started coming to NextStep, and others are worse off yet.
Without therapy to help move and stretch, many of us end up sitting in the same position for 8, 10, 12 hours straight, causing our bodies to conform to that position. Muscles and joints tighten and lock and end up taking more and more work for someone else to move them, let alone to move them ourselves.
With cities in North Carolina and nationwide seeing and welcoming mass protests of thousands of people, with hundreds of doctors praising those very protests, and with Gov. Cooper joining in with them without social distancing or wearing a face mask (dangling from one ear isn’t quite it), keeping gyms shut down lacks whatever justification it had.
Is it right to tell clients of gyms they’re out of luck?
Is it right to withhold therapy from paralyzed patients seeking to walk again — or at least not lose months of progress toward walking again?
