Starting Over
Veteran Michael Kabat competed in the National Veterans Wheelchair Games in Denver, CO in 2010. This year the Games will be held in Pittsburgh, PA.
Michael Kabat, 60, a decorated Vietnam Veteran from Onalaska, is a people person. As a salesman of plumbing equipment throughout western Wisconsin he traveled many a road and stopped in often to just say hello, not only to his customers but the local clerk at a convenience store. If there was something special in their life, a birthday or anniversary, he remembered it, just to make them feel special. When he wasn’t driving from destination to destination, Michael ran there. He competed in marathons and during the course of his adult life logged over 40,000 miles. Then one day in September 2008, while cross-training for a marathon, he crashed on his bicycle. Life changed. That fast. What do they say? In the blink of an eye.
“I was descending down a hill,” said Michael, “and looked back toward my riding partners behind me. That’s all I really remember.”
Two weeks later, he awoke in a hospital bed with his family all around him. His son was squeezing his feet.
“You can’t feel this, Dad, can you?,” asked Michael’s son.
“No,” he replied.
“Dad, you’re paralyzed.”
Michael doesn’t even remember his initial reaction to those words.
“Maybe it was ‘wow’ or something,” he says.
He and his riding partners would later connect the pieces of the story that changed his life.
“I had gotten out in front of them quite a ways,” said Michael. “After I looked back, I had fallen into a five-foot ditch on the side of the road. They rode right passed me, all the way to the YMCA. They were kind of curious where I was, but figured I would show up eventually.”
The team had showered and when Michael didn’t show up by then, they jumped into their cars and went looking for him. They saw his bicycle first.
“The back wheel was sticking up out of the high grass,” he said. “They found me lying down in the ditch. I had been there for about an hour.”
A flight for life helicopter flew Kabat to Gunderson Lutheran Hospital where he spent the next three months learning to cope with his injury and facing life as a quadriplegic.
“I’ve never looked at this injury as a punishment from God,” said Michael. “It’s just an extra crutch to bear.”
Michael Kabat returned home to Onalaska in December 2008 just before Christmas. Ahead of him and his wife, Debbie, were mountains of major life changes. They had to adapt their entire tri-level home. Take out the stairs? Yes. Install an elevator? They did. Ceiling lift? Of course. Handicapped vehicle? Absolutely. Plans for the future? All changed.
“Try to imagine life the way you know it,” said Debbie. “And then, suddenly, you are completely dependent on a caregiver. Everything has changed. This unfortunate accident didn’t only happen to Michael, it happened to both of us.”
By 2010, Michael had advanced far enough in his therapy that Recreation Therapists at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center recommended he consider attending the National Veterans Wheelchair Games in Denver. Long before a Veteran attends an event of this magnitude or even before he goes home, providers, nurses and therapists focus on getting them back into the community first.
“We try to find out what makes them tick,” said Brian Walker a Recreation Therapist for 20 years at the Milwaukee VA, who now serves as their Community Relations Manager, “our entire focus is getting the Veterans back into the community, not the hospital, which includes different challenges like getting through doors or how to use transportation.”
Getting a Veteran to attend the games is more of a long range goal—certainly one suited for Michael’s competitiveness.
“We try to get the novice or a Veteran with a newer injury to come to the games,” said Walker. “To see it, to experience it. The games really show the VA at their best.”
Attracting 580 athletes in Denver in 2010, a new record for the games, Michael Kabat was one of twenty-one Veterans with spinal cord injuries attending the games representing the Milwaukee VA. He competed in four events (motorized wheelchair rally, motorized slalom, powerchair 200 relay and powerchair soccer) earning a gold medal in the motorized wheelchair rally, an event held at Invesco Park, the home of the Denver Broncos. Although a strong competitor, this year’s games in Denver were more about camraderie than competition.
“The games are just awesome,” said Michael. “I’m really inspired. I’ve learned so much about things I didn’t know about living in a wheelchair and I met so many great friends.”
Since that fateful day in September, there have been good days and bad, some certainly easier than others. But throughout, Michael has remained positive maintaining his sense of humor. He is still known to friends as “Mustard Mike” and plans to visit soon the new mustard museum in Middleton, Wisconsin which recently relocated from Mount Horeb. He is certain there will come a time when he will run again.
“I’ll run another marathon in heaven,” said Michael flashing a big grin.
The National Veterans Wheelchair Games are the largest annual wheelchair sports event in the world. It is a multi-event sports and rehabilitation program for military service Veterans who use wheelchairs for sports competition due to spinal cord injuries, amputations, or certain neurological problems. Athletes in the Games compete within three divisions -- Masters (over age 40), Novice (first-time competitors in the Games), and Open (all others, or those who chose to compete in this category). They also compete within classes according to the level of their physical ability, with three quadriplegic-level classes (IA, IB, and IC), and four paraplegic-level or amputee classes (II, III, IV, and V). Michael Kabat competed as a Class 1A in the Novice division. The Games are presented by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), and are hosted this year by the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System in Pittsburgh, PA. Funded with help from a host of corporations and service organizations, the National Veterans Wheelchair Games are a showcase for the benefit of sports rehabilitative programs, and the remarkable athletic abilities and personal achievements of our nation's disabled Veterans.
For more on the National Veterans Wheelchair Games, please visit www.wheelchairgames.va.gov or http://www.pittsburgh.va.gov/NVWG/index.asp
