“Not once have I ever said, ‘Why me, God?’ “

Dec. 08--MOUNT PLEASANT -- One moment, Kean Elixson was driving down a gravel road, following a co-worker home to borrow a tiller. The next, his truck was careening into the ditch, rolling once...

Twice ...

Three times.

The 49-year-old husband, father and shift supervisor at MackayMitchell Envelope Co., had to be cut from of his 2002 Toyota Tundra pickup. He was buckled in, and suffered no obvious injury in the wreck. But the Mother's Day crash put Elixson in a wheelchair, probably, if not certainly, for the rest of his life.

"I want to see him get better to a point where we can get him back to work." Duane Blint, plant manager at MackayMitchell Envelope Co.

The violence of the crash caused vertebrae in his neck to slip, severing his spinal cord.

"When I couldn't feel my legs, I knew," he said at home Monday. "I just knew I was paralyzed."

For a man who has surfed and skied, climbed mountains and ridden dirt bikes, the world shrank in an instant.

Almost seven months after the accident that changed everything, Elixson spends his days seated in the high-tech wheelchair that enables him to move around the house he shares with his wife, Erika, a pair of teenage stepsons, a 2-year-old daughter, a black lab and a kitten.

But he doesn't dwell on what isn't, like not being able to climb down on the floor to play with his little girl. He chooses instead to take joy from what is, like letting her climb up on him and drive.

"Not once have I ever said, 'Why me, God?' " Elixson said.

In fact, he considers himself fortunate -- to be alive; to have avoided a brain injury; to have the use of his arms and, increasingly, his hands; to have the support of family, especially a wife who also happens to be a nurse, friends and an employer that has stuck by him; and to have a doctor who has left the door open to hope.

"I don't know how other people's attitudes are," Elixson said. "I've been positive before the accident, I've been positive after."

The attitude carries over to Erika Elixson, who was at home, getting ready for work, when word came of the accident. She looks on their life now as a "new adventure," Kean Elixson said.

"It could be worse," Erika said. "He could have died."

As an LPN at Klein Center in West Burlington, where she recently returned to work, Erika's job involves working with people at various stages of loss of bodily control. That she now has to do so at home, too, has not caused her any bitterness.

The essence of her husband still is there. He has his humor, she said. And their shared memories are intact.

"Life is good," Erika said.

--*

A lifelong Californian, Elixson moved three years ago- almost by mistake -- to Iowa, bringing his then-girlfriend and her two sons, Thomas and Noah, to Mount Pleasant, where he had taken a job at MackayMitchell.

The mistake of their coming was in responding to a mislabeled job listing at CareerBuilder.com, which appeared to be for a position with an envelope company in Industry, Calif., not far from where Elixson was living in Chino Hills., Calif.

The telephone number with the 319 area code was written off as belonging to some far-flung corporate headquarters. To the 20-year envelope industry veteran's surprise, however, the job and the phone number shared an address.

Intrigued by the opportunity, Elixson flew to Iowa for a job interview, was hired as a machine adjuster and within a year was promoted to supervisor. So instead of a new job 18 miles west of home, he embarked on a new life 1,800 miles to the northeast.

"We just love it," Elixson said of the Iowa life.

Here, Erika was able to finish nursing school and find a job she loves. They were married in Iowa. Their daughter, Sydney, was born here.

Before the accident, when they visited family in California, Iowa felt like the home they had to get back to.

Elixson said he remembers thinking, "Something's gotta happen. Life's too good." Then came Mother's Day. And the accident.

He remembers the whole experience -- the rolling of the truck; telling Erika he was sorry before he was loaded into a helicopter at the airport in Mount Pleasant; the nine-minute flight to Iowa City; the interrogation about drinking or drug use; the moment when he realized life wouldn't be the same.

The only thing he doesn't know, he said, is what caused the accident in the first place.

--*

In the rollover, Elixson was whip-lashed back and forth in his seat, causing the fifth, sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae in his neck to slip, cutting the spinal cord and causing paralysis from the chest down. Any higher, Erika said, and her husband would be on a ventilator, unable to breathe on his own.

He spent three months in the hospital in Iowa City after the crash, and six months working to regain the use of his arms.

Now, Elixson is able to use his hands, but lacks fine motor control. That means while he can hold a toothbrush and feed himself, he is unable to write. He has sensation below the chest and, with a tremendous effort that leaves him exhausted, can at times will his toes to move.

The improvements he already has experienced, plus will and determination, create a sense of hope for the future, beyond the positive attitudes of the present.

Elixson works out at home using 12-pound ankle weights, pedals a hand-bike six miles a day and rides Southeast Iowa Regional Transit bus -- the family doesn't have a vehicle to accommodate his wheel chair -- to West Burlington for physical therapy twice a week at the Great River Center for Rehabilitation.

"I always say it's just temporary," Elixson said, exuding optimism about his future prospects for improvement.

That attitude is bouyed by the confidence of his doctor in the advances being seen in the treatment of spinal cord injuries. And by the experiences of other patients Elixson met during his time in the hospital.

Larry Krogmann suffered a broken neck in a June 2000 crash, paralyzing him below the chest.

In the 13 years since, the 41-year-old Masonville man has lived what can only be described as a full life.

"Just on wheels," he said.

Krogmann went back to work in 2005, and now drives himself the 40 miles to and from Waterloo, where he works in sales at the Sears department store.

That same year, he got married, and today is father of four children between the ages of 8 and 2 who keep their father very busy.

Like Elixson, Krogmann still lacks fine motor control in his fingers. But if he can grip something, he can use it. Krogmann said he dresses himself, does laundry, cooks, transfers from wheelchair to sofa and back and, for the most part uses a manual wheelchair.

"It's good exercise," Krogmann said of getting around under his own power. Elixson, who he met in therapy at St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids, will get there. It's a matter of building endurance, Krogmann said, explaining it took two years for him "to be totally independent."

Krogmann, unlike Elixson, has no sensation below his chest. For Elixson, those sensations provide a slim hope of walking again. It might never happen, but a slim chance is better than no chance, he said.

So while Elixson can dream of leaving the wheelchair behind, his focus is on goals that are more concrete and attainable: Regaining the ability to write and building up the strength to transfer himself into and out of his wheelchair.

"I'm striving to do more with what I have," Elixson said.

Most immediately, he hopes to join his wife in a return to work, pending eventual clearance by his doctor. When the day comes, touchscreens, or a stylus in each hand when he has to use a keyboard, will enable him to do some tasks.

Other duties use abilities he never lost, or that can be accommodated in other ways.

"I still think I can supervise being in a wheelchair," Elixson said.

That is what Duane Blint, the plant manager at MackayMitchell, thinks, too. It was Blint who lured a then-unemployed Elixson from California.

The skills and positive attitude Elixson displayed on the phone and during a visit to the plant got him the job. Those are the same traits that have kept him in it.

Elixson remains on the employee rolls at the plant, with disability insurance providing a limited income. Doctors have said it could be a year before he is able to punch the clock again.

If it is determined in May that Elixson isn't quite ready, the company will re-evaluate things. But like Elixson, Blint is full of optimism.

"I want to see him get better to a point where we can get him back to work," Blint said.

MackayMitchell has been "rare," Elixson said, in its show of support since the accident.

Co-workers visited him in the hospital and, since he's been home, have been asking when he'll be back on the job. A fundraiser in October raised almost $3,900, and the amount was matched by Elixson's employer, making for a total of $7,800.

Blint said after taking him so far from home and family, the attitude of the company was "we're just not going to drop the ball on him."

--*

Some modifications to the Elixsons' Mount Pleasant home, like an accessible shower and widened bedroom door, have been made since the crash. And more are needed.

Right now, though, the family is saving up to buy a vehicle, possibly a retired transit bus with a lift, that can handle the wheelchair and all three children.

The right vehicle would expand the world beyond the confines of home or the bus schedule.

Skiing and mountain climbing might still be things of the past, but camping could be a possibility. Not that Elixson is complaining.

"Life," he said, "is what you make it. We feel more blessed now than we've ever felt."

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(c)2013 The Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa)

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