Thriving Through It-How They Do It: What It Takes to Transform Trauma Into Triumph

by Joyce Ann Tepley

Overview

Twenty people from all walks of life were interviewed for this book. In their own words, they tell what it takes to thrive through the most difficult times in their lives. Do they have a secret formula that allows them to transform their adversity into the very process that makes them do well? Do they have anything in common with each other?

Peg Nosek, one of the thrivers, described how in her youth she relentlessly pursued her passion for music. One day in high school, she was lying on the couch at home, listening to the radio. The program was playing Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. “I heard this heart-wrenching soliloquy by the oboe, and it touched me so deeply. I thought to myself, ‘I want to learn how to make that sound.’” Because she had breathing difficulties from a genetic disease, it took her over a year to convince the band director at her school and her parents to let her try. She got a tutor during the summer, and when school began, she said, “I zoomed right up to first chair.”

Anyone going through a tough time will learn what Peg knew about her personality traits, what she believed in, and how skillful she was at finding the necessary support to, not only overcome the odds against her, but to flourish. Parents, teachers, and youth workers will learn how important their role is in demonstrating resilience. Every one of the thrivers said they had someone who believed in them and encouraged their talents when they were young.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491718186
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/04/2014
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.41(d)

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Thriving through It—How They Do It

What It Takes to Transform Trauma into Triumph

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By Joyce Ann Tepley

iUniverse LLC

Copyright © 2014 Joyce Ann Tepley
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-1818-6

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CHAPTER 1

My Who's Who of Thrivers

The following people were the original thrivers I interviewed for my study. (See the appendix for details of the study process.) My intention for the first two sections of this book is to honor their experiences and to stay true to their own words. I quote from their recorded interviews and write what they said at the time. Since the interviews were conducted more than ten years ago, three of the thrivers—Barry Corbet, Phyllis Rubenfeld, and John Roberts—have died. I plan to reinterview the rest of the thrivers and later publish an update of their lives.

Trying to convey in printed form a sense of their unique personalities is not easy, but I hope these short biographical sketches will introduce you, the reader, to those who are behind the remarkable insights they shared with me about their life journeys. I felt privileged to witness their lives of grace under pressure poetically articulated and hope you will feel the same.

Barry Corbet, Mountaineer/ Magazine Editor (63) Spinal Cord Injury

Barry was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, in a "typical middle-of-the-road" family. His father had several sales businesses in his working years: neon products, import/export, and finance. All Barry cared about was hiking, camping, and biking. He said he was grateful to his parents for getting him involved in Boy Scouts because "the scoutmaster got [him] out of [his] mundane, middle-class kind of life and into the mountains of British Columbia."

He left home at the age of twenty to go to college and worked summer jobs as a mountain guide and ski instructor in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In 1963, he was on the first American team to make the ascent of Mount Everest and was later on the first American team to climb a mountain in Antarctica. College became less important than mountaineering, so he dropped out and started his own business organizing and leading mountain climbing expeditions.

On one such expedition in 1968, he was injured while filming climbers from a helicopter. The helicopter crashed, and he survived, but with a spinal cord injury that forever paralyzed his legs. After his rehabilitation and adjustment to using a wheelchair, he picked up his life where he left off, continuing to manage his mountaineering business. He even white-water kayaked all the rivers of the West. He remarked, "I set out to prove to the world that I might look like a paraplegic, but it really wasn't me."

In his older years, as he became more accepting of himself as disabled, he started a magazine for people with disabilities called New Mobility. As managing editor, he wouldn't allow any overcoming stories of people with disabilities. His philosophy was, "We don't overcome: we work with." After two failed marriages, he now relishes time spent in the closeness of his three children and four grandchildren, "which is all you can ask."

Did Barry thrive because of or in spite of his disability? "In spite of."

Phyllis Rubenfeld, University Professor/ Disability Rights Activist (62) Post-Polio Syndrome

Phyllis said, "I was born in the Jewish ghetto of Brooklyn, New York." Her parents were immigrants from Poland and had relatives killed in the Holocaust. They had little money, her father being a tailor, but she talked about how she and her younger brother grew up in a warm family atmosphere. Her parents emphasized getting a good education, and they told her, "Never be ashamed of who you are. If you have to wash toilets, be the best."

She developed her drive for justice from her parents. She said, "They were vehemently opposed to intolerance of any kind." Her mother marched in civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s and admonished neighbors when they would only complain about unfairness but not take any action to change it.

Phyllis got polio in the epidemic raging through New York City in the summer of 1946. She was nine years old. All four of her limbs were affected. She became isolated from a larger world of experience due to the long rehabilitation process while working hard to regain some use of her muscles. She recalled that it was a nightmare. With painful exercise and surgeries replacing ankle and knee tendons, she was able to walk without the support of leg braces. That was the goal imposed on her, and she was determined to fulfill it. Her arms were weak but functional.

She was isolated even more because she could not walk far and because her parents only had occasional transportation since they owned an automobile jointly with her father's brother. During this time in her life, when most children were out exploring the world and going to school, she studied at home under teachers who came to her. She kept up and was finally able to attend school in fourth grade. The experience of being around other children and the influence her teacher had on her life then made an indelible impression that carried her through to her doctorate degree and her professorship at Hunter College.

When asked if she thrived because of or in spite of her disability, she said, "A little bit of both."

Gilbert Estrada, Volunteer/ Activist (47) Cerebral Palsy

Born with cerebral palsy and later diagnosed with dyslexia, Gilbert said of his parents, "They never could understand [my disability], and they didn't know how to cope with me." His parents lived in San Antonio, Texas, but divorced some time after Gilbert was born. His dad remarried and brought Gilbert to Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas when Gilbert was six because he couldn't even sit up. He mostly lived with his father's parents because there were other siblings to care for and he was in and out of hospitals as they sought treatment for him. Later, they put him in a state mental hospital for a brief time because the doctors told his family he was retarded and would not amount to anything.

From his perspective as an adult he said," I'm not angry with my parents for not knowing what needed to be done, so I just started doing things for myself."

Though illiterate, he could speak, he knew he could learn, and he felt strong enough in his late teens to insist on getting his own apartment. He and his mother continually argued over this issue, but he wanted to prove he could live independently. It was hard starting out on his own. "I've been robbed, beaten. That comes with the territory. People take advantage of you just because you are a disabled person." But he had no regrets.

He found an organization called REACH, an independent living center that helps disabled people find housing and employment, offers peer counseling, and creates a community to support living outside of institutional care. Gilbert volunteers there as a phone buddy keeping in touch with his homebound peers. Through the help of REACH, he was able to find a wheelchair-accessible apartment, qualify for SSDI, and arrange to have a person come to clean a couple of times a week. Though he has little use of his left hand and has trouble walking, he does his own laundry, cooks, and can transfer to and from his wheelchair.

Through ADAPT, a political organization that demonstrates around the country calling attention to disability access issues, he has found a calling. He sat in front of buses and joined rallies in the rain to point out that disability does not necessarily limit you. Lack of access to services, employment, public transportation, and buildings makes limitations. He also plays Santa Claus in his wheelchair each Christmas for disabled Hispanic children.

Gilbert said he thrived "because of God, his own determination, and in spite of his disability."

Anor Byer, Project Manager (53) Post-Polio Syndrome

Born in Brenham, Texas, and raised in Amarillo, Anor speaks of her childhood in a soft native Texan drawl. She got polio at the tender age of one during the epidemic of 1948. Because she was so young, she doesn't remember the initial onset of the disease. She does remember the ordeal of being in hospitals just about every summer of her childhood and having surgeries to correct weaknesses in her polio-affected legs.

They took muscles from her hip, crisscrossed them to her left leg to strengthen it, and corrected her crow's foot, which they broke several times to flatten to a normal position. She had an artificial artery put in her weaker leg to help it grow faster, and she had a bone fusion in one ankle to prevent it from flopping. In between surgeries were recovery time, rehabilitation consisting of exercises and stretching muscles and tendons, and school.

She was able to progress to walking with a slight limp, but there was very little time for summer activities and fun during school years.

"All I wanted to do was just be a normal kid and not have to be put through that. I didn't see anything wrong with the way I was walking. It—flabby leg muscles—got to be bothersome more than anything."

Being so young when she got polio, her way of walking was just a part of her. The children at school accepted her, and she was a tomboy, participating in all the sports.

Her parents divorced when she was six, and her mother moved in with her parents, but two years later, her mother also got polio and died from its complications. Her father had remarried, but Anor continued to live with her grandmother because she didn't get along with her stepmother. She often saw her father, to whom she attributes her drive to do well. "He was a perfectionist and strict." They knocked heads, but he didn't want her to ever feel handicapped.

Her work as a manager in the Texas State Highway Department is very rewarding. She feels competent about her ability to move projects along while being empathetic to her coworkers. Her marriage, their adopted son—the light of her life, her church work, and her involvement with the Texas Polio Survivors Association, all make a fulfilling life.

She sees herself as thriving both "in spite of and because of" her disability.

John Roberts, Resource Organizer (43) Muscular Dystrophy

Though he was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of fourteen, John's symptoms started when he was eight and steadily worsened. His younger brother also had muscular dystrophy and died of respiratory failure. At the time of being interviewed for my thriver study, his older brother developed congestive heart failure and had a heart transplant, so he saw himself as the healthy one in his family.

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, he said of himself, "I was an active child. I had lots of friends. I played and goofed around, and we played sports all the time."

His father was a hospital supply salesman and later had his own catalog photography business. Though his parents divorced when he was ten and his mother remarried an old family friend, he saw his father on weekends.

"My parents were perfect for what I had. There was never even a discussion of there being anything wrong. It wasn't an issue." They were supportive of everything he tried to do.

After college, he moved to Dallas, Texas, on the prompting of a friend because he couldn't find a job in his home state. His health was getting worse, so he started relying on a wheelchair, which gave him freedom of movement and freedom from the fear of falling. He found work in what he thought was accounting but turned out to be debt collecting. Within six months, he was promoted two times, and within five years, he was made supervisor because he was so good at skip tracing. Working on the telephone and being good with people made it the perfect job for him.

Due to health reasons, he had to retire. He said, "After taking a spiritual inventory, I [searched] my life and what it meant." He joined Many Hands Ministry and became a community organizer/volunteer, helping people in dire straits find resources to repair their homes, get food, and have what they need to survive. He was not raised a religious person, but he is good on the phone, he serves people, and he feels blessed by God, who now is the driving force in his life. "It's like a renaissance."

He is able to live independently with the help of loyal attendants who taught him how to manage life in a wheelchair and who help him with meals, cleaning, and transportation.

He sees muscular dystrophy as a gift to demonstrate to others how to thrive "because of and in spite of" its disabling effects.

Karyl Eckels, Caregiver Coordinator (59) Sickle Cell Anemia

Karyl was born in Oakland, California, and had an unusual childhood. Her adoptive mother had rheumatoid arthritis and was in such severe pain that her husband had to carry her from room to room. Her doctor suggested that her pain would lessen if she adopted a child. Miraculously, it did when she adopted a little boy. Even though her elbows were fused and her hands were crippled, she could still change her son's diapers and hold his bottle. A few years later, they adopted Karyl. They were in their forties.

They were a working-class family in a mostly black neighborhood. Her mother worked part time in the textbook room of a junior high school, and her father owned a janitorial service. They were high school graduates, which she said was unusual for that generation. They believed in the value of a good education. Her father read to her and her brother, who was four years older and had a learning disability and stutter. She has fond memories of her adoptive grandparents who lived in Missouri where her parents grew up. They would often visit.

Karyl was a sickly child, often missing school, which was attributed to not eating well and anemia. She considers it a blessing that her parents did not know the exact cause of her illnesses because she wasn't treated like a disabled child. She said, "It helped [me] thrive by them not knowing my diagnosis."

It wasn't until she was nineteen when she became pregnant, miscarried, and had trouble recovering that she asked to have blood tests done. The doctors discovered she had sickle cell anemia.

That didn't stop her from being the first one in her family to graduate from college. Following her mother's example of not feeling sorry for herself and not giving up, Karyl went to work for the telephone company as a secretary, then to the child assault prevention program of her city where she also became a political activist for developmentally disabled parents, and then to the Berkley Center for Independent Living as manager of their attendant care program. The Center was more accommodating to her worsening symptoms of extreme fatigue, susceptibility to pneumonia, and pain.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Thriving through Itâ?"How They Do It by Joyce Ann Tepley. Copyright © 2014 Joyce Ann Tepley. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword, xi,
Preface, xv,
Acknowledgments, xxi,
Introduction, xxv,
Part One: My Who's Who of Thrivers, 1,
Barry Corbet, Mountaineer/Magazine Editor (63) Spinal Cord Injury, 3,
Phyllis Rubenfeld, University Professor/Disability Rights Activist (62) Post-Polio Syndrome, 5,
Gilbert Estrada, Volunteer/Activist (47) Cerebral Palsy, 7,
Anor Byer, Project Manager (53) Post-Polio Syndrome, 9,
John Roberts, Resource Organizer (43) Muscular Dystrophy, 11,
Karyl Eckels, Caregiver Coordinator (59) Sickle Cell Anemia, 13,
Peg Nosek, Researcher/Disability Activist (48) Spinal Muscular Atrophy, 15,
Charlotte Stewart, Agency Director (48) Rheumatoid Arthritis, 17,
Bob Roark, Reluctant Mentor (49) Spinal Cord Injury, 19,
Ronnie Philipp, Faith Driven (54) Post-Polio Syndrome, 21,
Willie Mae Clay, Public Administrator (53) Cerebral Palsy, 23,
Pat Pound, Disability Policy Analyst (50) Sight Impairment, 25,
Gail Bookman, Ever Hopeful (39) Sickle Cell Anemia, 27,
Joan Headley, Organization Director (53) Post-Polio Syndrome, 29,
Lonnie Kendrick, Prayer Warrior (50) Back Injury, 31,
Patricia McKenna, Change Agent (60) Cerebral Palsy, 33,
Dennis Gerron, Entrepreneur of Social Programs (40) Sight and Hearing Impairment, 35,
Judy Babbitt, City Planner (59) Post-Polio Syndrome, 37,
Jan Garrett, Agency Director (38) Born with No Arms and Legs, 39,
Myrna Gorchoff, Volunteer Advocate for People with Disabilities (43) Dandy-Walker Syndrome, 41,
Part Two: What Kind of Person Is a Thriver?, 43,
Number-One Reason Given for Thriving: Personality Traits, 45,
Number-Two Reason Given for Thriving: Beliefs, Philosophy, and Purpose, 52,
Number-Three Reason Given for Thriving: Parental Support, Support of Family, Friends, and Other Resources, 60,
Part Three: My Findings, 73,
Two Big Ideas—,
The First Big Idea: Thriving Occurs in Context, 75,
The Second Big Idea: Thrivers Live from the Inside Out, 79,
Special Blessing Just for You, 123,
Appendices, 125,
Appendix I, 127,
Appendix II, 129,
Appendix III , 137,
Notes, 141,
Bibliography, 147,
Book Club Discussion Questions, 149,