MacKenzie's journey to walk again: Wreck delays graduation, but not woman's determination
NEW ORLEANS — MacKenzie Maier didn't need a doctor to tell her what was wrong when she regained consciousness at Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport after a car crash.
"I woke up and immediately knew," she said. "My legs aren't moving. I did something to my spinal cord. I wasn't sure exactly what, but I knew.
"Yeah, it sucked. I mean, that's the best word I can give you, but I was at peace. I never really got super angry or super anxious about it. I've been at peace and had comfort through this whole journey."
Maier has astounded her doctors and others with her recovery so far from the May 18 crash that, aside from her physical injuries, delayed her graduation from Louisiana Tech University and the beginning of her nursing career. When she woke up in the hospital, she couldn't feel or move anything below her shoulders.
She'd broken her C6 and C7 vertebrae near the base of her neck. Her right femur was broken in half.
But her family knows that, if anyone can overcome such obstacles, it's MacKenzie. She's done it before.
When she was 4, she was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma. She was given a 30% chance of survival, said father Chuck Maier, who remembers trying to hide his tears from her when the family was given the diagnosis.
She took his hand and told him it would be OK.
"Who am I to doubt her when she tells me that now?"
'Oh, shoot. This must be pretty bad.'
On the evening of May 18, Maier was returning from a party where she and fellow Tech nursing classmates celebrated their graduation. She was sleeping while a friend was driving. Not too far from home, the driver ran off the road and hit some trees.
Maier remembers nothing of the crash. The first thing she recalls is talking to paramedics at the crash site and telling them she felt good, that she couldn't go to the hospital because she had to walk for her pining and graduation ceremonies.
"First thing I remember is the paramedics asking if I was OK," said Maier, who said it's probably a blessing she doesn't remember the wreck. "I was, like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm not hurting."
It wasn't until they put her into a helicopter that she realized how serious her injuries might be.
"I remember getting on the helicopter and I was like, oh, shoot. This must be pretty bad," she said.
As she was being flown to Shreveport, her family was heading to Ruston. Her mother, Teri Francois, was driving north from her Marrero home. Her father was flying into Dallas from his New Hampshire home.
Francois said she couldn't shake a sick feeling while traveling. Nothing about her day should have caused her to feel like that, but then came the phone call from another of her daughters with the news about MacKenzie.
"I guess I didn't know, but I knew," said Francois. "Once we found out she was alive, that was all we needed."
When Chuck Maier landed in Dallas around 10:30 p.m. and turned off airplane mode, his phone began "blowing up.
"You’re still on the taxiway, and you know something is wrong."
Thoughts of graduation faded for the family as they rushed to be with their daughter.
Made with love: Central Louisiana residents sew diapers for Haitian children
A family tradition: Opelousas family to be inducted into the Louisiana Folklife Center’s Hall of Master Folk Artists
Maier spent less than two weeks in Shreveport, making some improvements before she transferred to Touro Rehab in New Orleans on May 29. She could bend her right leg and wiggle her toes on that leg, and she continued to progress during the month she spent at Touro.
Her mother says the family was told to measure MacKenzie's progress by "small milestones," and they've done so. Although the wreck was horrific, she said, and the family is grateful it wasn't worse.
"It's just phases," said Francois. "Now if you'd asked me this when I first saw her, the devastation of everything, I would have never thought it would be happening this fast."
She said MacKenzie has worked so hard to make an amazing amount of progress in just weeks after the wreck. She said all of her children are natural overachievers, and "she's overachieving any milestones that they've set for patients with this type of spinal cord injury.
"She's blowing everybody away."
That was apparent on June 23, when she finally got her diploma.
A Tech graduation with New Orleans flair
On that day, Louisiana Tech brought Maier's delayed graduation ceremony to her. In a fourth-floor gymnasium at Touro Rehab in New Orleans, complete with a brass band, she and her family celebrated her academic achievements.
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, who is a physician, was her commencement speaker, and he said her struggles now and as a child will help her in her nursing career.
"You will be able to tell them there is hope," he said. "You will bless patients."
Tech President Les Guice said he wanted the ceremony to be formal, just as it would have been in Ruston.
"The only thing she doesn't have to do is wait in line with over a thousand other graduates who walked across the stage that day," he said to laughter.
Guice bestowed her associate of science degree in nursing, and the crowd of family, friends and Touro health-care providers applauded and gave her a standing ovation as Refried Confuzion played "Pomp and Circumstance."
He had MacKenze move her graduation cap tassel from the right to the left, and she tossed it into the air.
It was another small milestone she'd made in the five weeks since the wreck. When she still was in Shreveport, she made a deal with herself.
"I told myself, I can sit here and I can be depressed, or I can face it and do what I have to do to get back, and that's what I chose," she said. "And I would choose it again, every time."
That attitude mirrors what her family says about her positive outlook, both before and after the wreck.
"That smile! She's always had this contagious smile and just this energy that she just spreads," said her mother. "She has always been ... We call her 'the diva' at our house. She's always been the one to light up the rooms. She's something."
Her father agreed.
"She’s got the outlook you need for it, and we’re just here to support her anyway that we can," he said.
He called his daughter strong and determined, now and during her first health battle, which MacKenzie said she remembers in "bits and pieces."
She knows it has made her stronger.
The family had moved from Louisiana to California after her dad finished law school. A pharmacist first, he had gone to law school because he wanted to work in the entertainment field.
But two weeks after they arrived, during MacKenzie's fourth birthday party, they noticed she was walking with a limp. The diagnosis soon followed.
Francois said the tumor was above her left kidney, below an adrenal gland, and it had metastasized. Treatment took about a year and a half, and Chuck said they came close to losing her a few times.
Even then, Maier's attitude saw her through. She would repeat her favorite Bible verse, Philippians 4:13, over and over, he said.
"We made it through it all," said Chuck, who continued his career in pharmacy after becoming his own boss.
Growing up, her battle wasn't something the family really talked about. Chuck says he had hoped she had forgotten most of it, but MacKenzie said it set her on a path to a career in pediatric oncology.
She recalled a trip to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis with her cheer team from her Ville Platte high school, which she called "wholesome." That path always has been "a passion of mine," she said.
Some questioned why, given how sad the work can be.
"I mean, I was that kid."
Working on getting back to a normal life
As Maier graduated in New Orleans, she was just days away from being released from inpatient care. On June 28, not quite seven weeks since the crash, she left Touro and moved in with her older sister, a clinical pharmacist who lives in Jackson, Mississippi.
It wasn't quite seven weeks since the wreck.
Modifications have been made to the home, and the family started a GoFundMe to help pay for that, as well as her past and future medical care and therapy.
Even before she left New Orleans, she was able to walk with different types of assistance — a harness, a walker, a helping hand. She can care for herself now, said Maier.
"I mean, it might take me a second but I can do it," she said. "I've gained way more independence than I think any of us thought that I would, so fast."
She said it's fun to watch videos from right after the wreck to see how far she's come. "I mean, I laugh. Other people don't laugh, but I do."
The videos show her in different states — from at first barely recognizable, intubated with a swollen face, to sitting up for the first time and then to wiggling her fingers and toes.
"Literally, we got excited about wiggling my toes and, now here I am, I can move my leg," she said. "It's so cool to go back and watch it because it's like, wow, I really went from doing nothing to I've gained so much back and still so much to gain."
She's grateful for the support she's received from her family, friends and even strangers. Her father and stepmother, Carol Maier, have cruised for seven years on The Rock Boat, a music festival at sea, and a fellow cruiser she didn't know visited her while hospitalized in New Orleans.
Her friends, while unable to be with her every day, call her and send her texts. Her family has been "nothing short of amazing.
"You know your family will always be there for you, but when something actually happens and everybody really comes together, I can't even begin to say thank you enough to them. They were my rock through this all."
Being home is even better than she expected, said Maier. As much as she appreciated her health-care providers, she said being in her own bed, having a quiet house and being able to fully relax is amazing.
"I feel like me again," she said.
And, on July 3, she had her pinning ceremony at Ruston Regional Specialty Hospital. She was surrounded by classmates and family. Antonio Acosta, an uncle from Houston who also is a medical professional, presented her with her nursing pin.
Maier said she plans to take her nursing board exam by the end of July. She'll continue with outpatient therapy and "honestly, just try to get my life back to normal."
Before the wreck, Maier planned on working at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in the prenatal intensive care, but "things change," she said. She said that's still on the back burner.
What she's been through hasn't been easy, even with her outlook, she said.
"It was a little scary, but never in my mind have I doubted that I'm not gonna get back to where I was," she said. "Maybe not 100%, but I'll get pretty close. I won't stop until I do."
This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Wreck delays MacKenzie Maier's graduation, but not drive to walk again
