In May 2024, Kameron Schneweis noticed his legs felt heavy. At first, the 22-year-old Kansas native chalked it up to exhaustion.
“I decided to go to the doctor because I felt something wasn’t right,” Kameron said. “I ended up in the emergency room because I couldn’t hold up my own weight and collapsed under my legs. But I walked out of the ER that night.”
The next morning, Kameron woke up with no feeling or movement in his legs. He returned to the emergency room and was transported to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, where diagnostic tests later revealed he had transverse myelitis, a rare neurological condition in which the spinal cord becomes inflamed.
After a week in the ICU, Kameron arrived at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals specialized spinal cord program, focused on regaining his independence.
“Kameron was always really eager to work in therapies,” Sydney Watts, OTR/L, CLT, a Madonna occupational therapist, said. “He was a great joy to work with because he was undistracted and nothing was going to take his focus off of getting back to the best he could be.”
No stranger to hard work, Kameron moved himself between surfaces, using mostly his arms. Strengthening his legs needed the most attention.
“I wasn’t able to hold my own weight on my legs,” Kameron said. “Obviously walking was out of the picture. Standing was even pretty much out of the picture. When I did some standing, it was really me holding up my own weight with my arms.”
Using specialized technology, his physician-led care team made it a priority to get Kameron out of his wheelchair and moving.
The Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) bike helped the muscles relearn how to fire and activate. Then, using the bodyweight support treadmill, Kameron was able to stand and start to simulate the walking pattern. He also benefitted from the warm water therapy pool and the Madonna’s ICARE by SportsArt, a motorized elliptical. Finally, he used the Aretech ZeroG Gait and Balance System, a robotic body-weight support system on an overhead track, to do some more challenging therapy.
“He did lunges and squats and stepping up on curbs without support,” Samantha Trausch, PT, DPT, CBIS, NCS, a physical therapist said. “Then they used the perturbations feature where it kind of pulls him to help him learn how to respond to a loss of balance.”
Additionally, Kameron practiced his independence on the road in his occupational therapy sessions with the driving simulator. Since Kameron had difficulty with leg strength and coordination, his care team was prepared to introduce hand controls or other adaptions, but Kameron performed in normal to above normal ranges for reaction time, proving he was safe to drive using his legs.
Just 50 days after he was diagnosed with the rare condition, Kameron walked out of Madonna, using only a walker, and sometimes a cane.
“I had the goal that I was going to walk again,” Kameron said. “But I didn’t know if I was going to be able to.”
He also recognized the independent lifestyle he had to return to.
“He had just recently bought his own house,” Watts said. “He was working a great full-time job, with a lot of success and a lot of respect in his workplace. All of those things just boosted his motivation and really gave him something to go home to and a great purpose to work toward.”
Kansas man regains independence after battle with rare condition
