PHOTO BY MAXIM
by TAMELA MAXIM
and divorced. She and Mike separated in 2008 at her request because of her wish to free him of the hardships she brought to their marriage. Valerie starts her day with exercise – at least an hour before she even gets out of bed. Then her caretakers help with bathing, dressing, breakfast and more exercise. All of this is time consuming so she rarely schedules any appointments before 1 pm. She has a special wheelchair that performs two very important functions. It can be made to lie down and it can rise up so that she is seated at eye-level, what she calls her “cocktail” position so chit chat at a party is less awkward. When she and her caretaker are out in public and need to take care of “business,” even the handicapped restrooms aren’t large enough so Valerie’s head sticks out of the door during the process. If you’ve ever been greeted with a friendly “Hello,” by someone’s head at Burke’s Beach, or at a gas station, it might have been Valerie. She has worked very hard to gain some use of her arms and hands, but it is still somewhat limited. She keeps a cell phone in her lap and when someone calls, she uses the speaker phone. We take our privacy for granted, but Valerie must always have a caretaker within earshot, so there is no such thing as a private conversation. She has two full-time and one part-time nurse with shifts from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm and 5:30 pm to 7:30 am. Alisa started working for Valerie 4 ½ years ago when she was only 19. She and Julie are her full-time helpers and a golf fundraiser is held every November (in Baltimore) to help pay for nursing care. She has a special table in the dining room that is used for exercise. It looks like a large dining table, but it can be lowered to the floor and Valerie is placed on its padded top so that she can work on improving her range of motion and strength. She has also been working on learning how to walk again. In December 2011, she was able to use a walker to take 92 steps – an exciting accomplishment! Only one week later, she was told that she had Stage 3 colon cancer. Surgery and chemotherapy lasted until July and she moved to Hilton Head in August. The cancer is in remission, continued... April 17, 2013 Hilton Head
PremierLowcountry.com
2013
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