Finding new purpose in the face of devastating spinal cord injury

“I feel very thankful to be able to live so close to a place like this,” he says. “Martha Morehouse is like a one-stop shop for patients with a spinal cord injury.”

A multifaceted approach to care

Brooke Gaul came to Ohio State as a physical therapist midway through Lennon’s recovery process. His perseverance was one of the first things that stood out to her about him.

“When he would come up from Cincinnati, he would see everybody back-to-back on the same day, in the same building,” she recalls.

“He was a grade A rehab student as far as doing his exercises that we would recommend,” Gaul says.

The 90-minute weekly sessions that Gaul did with Lennon were part of the individualized care plan created by the team at Ohio State's Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Program.

The team uses advanced therapies to improve outcomes for those with spinal cord injuries, and includes specialists from a broad range of disciplines. Among them:

• Physicians
• Neurologists
• Physical therapists
• Occupational therapists
• Speech-language pathologists
• Dietitians
• Respiratory therapists

A point of emphasis within the program is having reliable points of contact so that patients aren’t overwhelmed by the scope of specialists they’re seeing. One of those people for Lennon was Theresa Berner.

Berner, rehabilitation clinic manager at the Assistive Technology Center that houses the Wheelchair Clinic, recalls a time that Lennon called with a question about the cushion on his wheelchair.

“He wasn’t sure who to call,” she says. “But I thought about my kids when they were in college – they didn’t know how to navigate healthcare.

“So what I hope I did for him was kind of serve as that consistent resource for him as he started navigating the system.”

That care this system provides is informed by the team of researchers who are studying new ways to treat spinal cord injuries. Much of that work is done at the Belford Center for Spinal Cord Injury, which focuses on spinal cord injuries as a type of systemic disease. The center was created in 2018 with a gift of $10 million from the Belford Family Charitable Fund.

A spinal cord injury increases a person’s likelihood of contracting secondary issues such as high blood pressure, incontinence, infection, obesity and diabetes. These can lead to shorter life expectancies, with mortality rates highest in the first year after the injury.

It’s why early access to comprehensive care, like Lennon received, is so critical.

The right fit

Those who work with Lennon say he’s a natural as a social worker.

“He is one of the most pleasant human beings you’ll ever meet in your life,” says Joy Omslaer, LISW, who has been one of Lennon’s mentors within social work.

“The thing that I really enjoy about working with Justin is he’s very curious, and he’s willing to try anything. Often when clinicians start their work, you see a kind of hesitance: ‘What if I mess this person’s life up beyond repair?’ I don’t know that Justin ever really had that reticence.”

Gaul says his presence at Martha Morehouse serves as an inspiration to the patients who receive treatment there.

“Patients we see now are like, ‘Oh, you have employees here in wheelchairs?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s possible. You can do this, too. You can get a job after we’re all done here,’” Gaul says.

Befitting his humble demeanor, Lennon credits those who helped him along the way and is grateful to be paying it forward.

“I had a lot of support around me, a lot of resources and I had a lot of great social workers here,” he says. “That helped to integrate me back into the workforce and get connected to resources that I didn’t know about beforehand. So I wanted to provide that opportunity for other patients.”