Shelly D. Templin - Pushing to the Peak: A Story of the Success~Ability of Dr. J. Glen House

Pushing to the Peak

A Story of the Success~ability of Dr. J. Glen House

Shelly D. Templin

Copyright 2016 Shelly D. Templin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-3617-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3618-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3616-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016905259

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/11/2016

Contents

This book is dedicated to my parents, Jim and Nancy House. Our family is forever grateful for your commitment, love and faith. Without you, this story might have a very different ending.

At some time in our lives, most of us face an adversity that threatens our ability to endure. Hardship in one form or another can shake our confidence in life and destroy our belief in ourselves. For some of us, such challenges are a constant feature of day-to-day existence. For others, there may be a single, life-altering event. In the face of such experiences, we may turn inward and collapse in sorrow and despair. But for some men and women, adversity calls forth unusual strength and couragecourage that inspires other people and leads them out of their own inner desperation.

In the autumn of 2013, I encountered both of these experiencesan adversity that threatened to turn me inward to destructive despair, and a medical doctor who inspired me toward strength and courage to face my trial.

On September 13, 2013, I suffered a rare disorder: a spinal stroke, a blood clot in my lower spine. The stroke occurred just as I arose from bed in the morning; after a few steps from the bed, I was struck with excruciating pain in my legs. I was frozen in place, and I cried out to my daughter to help me back to bed. My daughter called 911 and I was taken to Penrose Hospital, one of the main hospitals in my hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

After spending a week on the medical floor of Penrose, essentially paralyzed from the waist down, I was sent upstairs to the eighth floor rehabilitation unit. Following my placement in a patient room, the nurse said my doctorthe units medical directorwould see me shortly. Soon the nurse reappeared, followed by a smartly dressed man in a wheelchair. This is Dr. House, the nurse announced to my astonishment. It never occurred to me that a doctor would be in a wheelchair. This was the beginning of my relationship with Dr. J. Glen House.

As you will read in the pages that follow, Glen House had a skiing accident at age 20. In an instant on a slope in Utah, he went from being an expert skier and body builder to a C-7 quadriplegic. Amazingly, as you will see, that was not the end of the story for Glen House. As he would say today: hes not disabled; rather, hes someone who lives with a disability. He refuses to be defined by what happened at age 20.

In the years following the accident and his own rehabilitation, Glen put himself through medical schoola truly astonishing feat for someone in his situation. He studied under one of the most renowned spinal cord injury specialists in the country. Today Glen is not only the medical director of Penrose Hospitals Center for Neuro and Trauma Rehabilitation; he is also an inventor of various devices to ease the lives of people with neurological or other traumatic conditions. Glen is one of the most brilliant men I have ever known, yet one of the humblest. His bedrock faith in God is apparent in all he does.

I credit my own ability to walk with a cane today to Glen House and his incredible staff. These men and women have created an amazing communitya culture of hopeon Penroses eighth floor. That spirit of hope is palpable when you arrive on that floor. These doctors, nurses, therapists and their assistants are realists, of course, as good medical people are. Glen Houses approach to life is what I would term optimistic adaptability. He has trained himself to approach every hurdle he encounters with a kind of Thomas A. Edison determination: There is a better way to do itfind it! This kind of optimism, adaptability, practical ingenuity and prayerful strength rubs off on everyone who comes under Glens care.

Would Glen House be the inspiration he is to meand to many other patients on Penroses rehab unitwere he not quadriplegic? Im certain that Glen would be a remarkable person no matter what kind of life he lived. But Im also convinced that his divinely-infused influence on people going through what for many is the most difficult experience of their lives is enhanced by his own physical condition. The eighth floor of Penrose is not just a physical rehab floor. It is an incubator for the human spirit, no matter what the age of the patient. In His providence, God allowed Glens skiing accident; but using Gods mercy and power, Glen has turned it into an opportunity to be a healer and an inspiration to many other men and women facing the rigors of rehabilitation. Glen did not turn inward in defeat and despair.

Glen may sit much of the day in a wheelchair, but he does not sit still. Hes a bundle of energy, helping other people navigate their new world following life-changing injury. I believe you will be inspired by Glens story, as powerfully told by his devoted sister, Shelly Templin.

You dont have to be a spinal cord injury patient to be fascinated by Glens story. This narrative will speak to you no matter where you are in life and no matter what the challenges you may be experiencing. Glens influence extends far beyond the eighth floor of Penrose Hospital. He has advised other medical professionals around the country. Glens life is a great gift to us; Shelly, too, has given us a marvelous gift by capturing her brothers life in these pages. I know youll benefit from Glens experience as I have. And you may even grow to love this remarkable man as I do.

~ Don Simpson, former Editorial Director at NavPress

I want to thank my brother, Glen, for living such an extraordinary life and for letting me try to put his story into words so that others can be inspired and encouraged. You are my hero.

Thank you to my parents for showing us sacrificial lovealways. And for letting me share your private, vulnerable and emotional moments. You are the ones who showed your four children how to serve, to love, to have faith and never, ever to give up.

Thank you to my friends, Traci Lemons and Marcy Toppert, for encouraging me to keep pursuing my dream to publish this story. I know there must have been many days when you wanted to tell me to publish or stop talking about it. But you never did. Thank you for believing in me.