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7924 3rd Ave Brooklyn, NY 11209 (718) 238 4935 Fax: (718) 238 4936 Mike, prop. |
| 7924 3rd Ave Brooklyn, NY 11209 (718) 238 4935 Fax: (718) 238 4936 Store Hours Monday-Friday 11A.M - 7P.M Saturday- 10A.M - 6P.M Sunday- 11A.M - 5P.M |
| The Valerie Piro Story On January 12th, 2008, Valerie Piro was a junior at Stuyvesant High School on her way to Dartmouth College with the Stuyvesant High School girls track team when the van they were traveling in went off the road. After it had stopped flipping over, Valerie could not feel her legs. She was transported by helicopter to Dartmouth Medical Center where a piece of titanium was bolted into her spinal column in her neck because vertebrae had been shattered, and her spinal cord compressed. She had been paralyzed from the chest down. She could not move or feel anything. Her arms and hands, especially her right, were also affected. She could barely hold a fork in her right hand. The prognosis was bleak; she would hopefully regain the use of her arms and hands, but little else. She spent the next six months in hospitals, first at NYU, then at Johns Hopkins, working hard at rehab. She returned home in July of last year, and began a home rehab program, working at it 15 to 20 hours a week. Slowly she began a process of recovery that has gone on over 20 months, regaining feeling and muscle strength inch by inch. At the present time, varying levels of feeling have returned all the way down to her toes. Her left hand has almost fully recovered, and her right is almost there, though still somewhat weak. The muscles in her abdomen, lower back, hips and thighs have begun to work, and she can move her legs slightly. Through hard work she has progressed far beyond expectations, and continues to improve. Currently she spends 25 to 30 hours a week on rehabilitation. This includes hour-long acupuncture treatments five times a week. To date, she has had nearly 300 acupuncture sessions. She also goes to Northern New Jersey three times a week where an alternative care facility called Push to Walk is working with her to get her on her feet. It is a sad statement that mainstream care, care that health insurance will pay for, is mostly limited to teaching people how to live in wheelchairs, whereas successful alternative care like acupuncture and Push to Walk are not covered by health insurance. But this is only half of the story. While at NYU Medical Center, Valerie continued her school course work. She was determined to graduate on time. She took three courses while dealing with the trauma of her accident: college level English and American History, and Pre-Calculus. She prepared for her SAT and took it in the hospital, requiring a scribe to write down her essays because her right hand was not strong enough. In September she returned to Stuyvesant High School, attending classes and then going home for rehab work. She applied to college, and on March 31st, she was accepted into Harvard University, where she will begin her studies in September 2010. |
Please join us Saturday December 5th for a very special fundraiser: