He will soon receive a robotic arm that attaches to the chair, assisting in personal grooming tasks, eating, grabbing things. “Maybe walking a dog.” He’s hoping for a service dog one day. And he’s waiting for modifications to be completed on a home he purchased in Highland Village. A one-story, close to TMC. “The fundraiser in February was a packed house,” says organizer Yvonne Spolane, a former operating-room nurse at Texas Children’s Hospital who has worked with Marco. “There’s a lot of things he needs, and insurance doesn’t cover a lot of things. But every time I see him, he’s upbeat. He’s amazing. Driven.”
“Not an option,” says Marco, who is eager to get back to clinic one day, seeing patients. He’d also like to help in some capacity with the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, supporting its mission to find cures for spinal cord injuries. “For me, Rex is larger than life. It was hard to adjust to the thought of him being a quadriplegic. But he’s the same person,” says Adrianne Morse, who did a residency in orthopedic surgery years ago,
, WHY ME? DOESN T CROSS HIS MIND. LIFE HAS A PLAN, THE DOCTOR SAYS. , I KNOW THERE S A PLAN FOR ME. , I DON T CLEARLY KNOW WHAT IT IS YET, , ,,, BUT I M GETTING MORE CLARITY.
It surprises no one that Marco is back doing work while quarantining during the Covid-19 pandemic. He’s nothing if not driven, say colleagues. “Why me?” doesn’t cross his mind. Life has a plan, the doctor says. “I know there’s a plan for me. I don’t clearly know what it is yet, but I’m getting more clarity.” “We do bi-monthly conferences in which we do case studies, and Rex had been coming to those in his wheelchair before the pandemic,” says spine surgeon Christoph Meyer, a faculty member with the TMC Spine Fellowship, a training program Marco founded 18 years ago to train physicians as specialists in spine surgery. “Here he is a year out, totally dependent on other people, yet giving talks, continuing research projects. We had a research symposium back in June of this year, and he had his name on three papers, I think. He’s not giving up, and he never will give up.”
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Rhonda Johnson thinks back to a time when she put her life in Marco’s hands. A cancerous tumor in her right pelvic floor had destroyed her hip socket, causing 52 hairline fractures. It could not be treated or replaced. Marco proffered two surgery options. One was a hemipelvectomy, the removal of her leg, hip and half her pelvis. She’d have less of a chance of recurrence with that option. But he sent her home to contemplate. She met him a week later with her decision. Amputation.
Marco as her mentor. “He’s always been strong of mind. It’s crazy when you think about the horrible irony of all of it.” He no doubt will continue to accomplish great things, says the Rev. Linda McCarty, president and CEO of Faith in Practice, a Christian non-profit that brings medical, surgical, dental and other health-related services to the poor of Guatemala. “We treat the whole person, not just the body. It’s not just your hands, it’s your heart. Rex has a unique specialty, but he also has a very special heart. He was a natural fit for us,” she says of the doctor who had become a team leader for the group. Before the accident, he’d been organizing another Guatemala trip. She recalls something his mother said at the hospital. “She said, ‘God has always done beautiful and wonderful things through Rex, and I know that’s going to continue to be the case.’ And she’s right.”
The day of surgery, she was surprised to find that the doctor had gone out and purchased red scrubs, the “positive energy color” she chose to get her through her cancer battle. During chemotherapy treatments, prior to ever meeting the doctor, she’d taken a red blanket to chemotherapy treatments; clipped a short, red hair extension as bangs to her head scarves and hats. “He heard about it and wore those scrubs for me. And in all my office visits with him, he’d be wearing a red tie. That’s the kind of compassion he has.” She spoke at the February fundraiser, Marco beaming. “I wanted him to know that we are all there for him,” Johnson says. “He saw me through it. I’ll see him through this. I’ll never forget what he told me when I said I wanted him to take my leg. He hugged me and said, ‘I would only hope that if something happened like this to me, I could be as brave and strong and courageous as you.’” Marco remembers that conversation. But most of all, her courage. “It inspired me throughout my career,” he says. “Especially now.”
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