Maybe I Can with Debbie Weiss

Ep. 93: Defying Odds with Christine Rush - Part 1

• Debbie Weiss

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In this episode of the Maybe I Can podcast, I chat with my incredible friend Christine Rush, a true embodiment of resilience. After a gymnastics accident left her paralyzed, Chris defied all odds, teaching herself to walk again through sheer determination. Despite ongoing pain, she’s not only pursued her own goals but also taken on the role of caregiver to her mother, showing unwavering strength in the face of adversity.

Chris’s story is a powerful reminder that it’s not the obstacles we face but how we rise to meet them. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about courage, perseverance, and chasing your dreams, no matter what life throws your way.

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to Maybe I Can, exploring possibilities one sprinkle at a time. If you've ever found yourself asking is this all there is to life, then you're in the right place. I'm Debbie author, speaker, entrepreneur and coach, and every Tuesday I'm here to share a sprinkle of hope and inspiration. Together, we'll uncover the more More joy, more fulfillment, more prosperity, more fun. We'll share stories of transformation, actionable tips and that little nudge you need to take the next step. So let's embark on this journey of discovery and say maybe I can to a life filled with more, ready to find out. Let's get started. The Maybe I Can Show starts now. Hello everyone and welcome to the show. I'm your host, debbie Weiss. Thanks for hanging in there If you're listening live.

Speaker 1:

We're a little late, but we're resilient and we figured it out. A little technical trouble, but that will not stop us. And it will certainly not stop the person that you are going to have the pleasure of meeting today, because she is a friend of mine. Her name is Chris Rush and she is the true embodiment of resilience, as you'll learn after hearing her story. After a gymnastics accident left her paralyzed, chris defied all the odds, teaching herself how to walk again. Through sheer determination. She battles pain, she has taken on the role of caregiver, she has unwavering strength in the face of adversity and I'm telling you this is not an exaggeration. She is a reminder, and really an inspiration to me to shut the heck up and stop complaining about my damn problems, because there is always a way. So, chris, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Hi Debbie, Thank you so much, Hi everybody.

Speaker 1:

So I am going to ask you my signature question, which it can be about anything. We're going to talk about all the things, but tell me about a time, and who knows, did you ever have an I can't attitude? I'm sure you must have, but that you ever went from kind of a defeated, I can't feeling to an empowered. Maybe I can mindset.

Speaker 2:

Great question and, honestly, in the course of my life if you asked me a couple years ago, I don't honestly think I can remember a time in my life where that was ever, ever, a thought in my mind and you know, you and I have had our as friends, you know, conversations from when I was very, very little.

Speaker 2:

I just there was always just this something in my mind that was telling me you know, yes, you can, and from very, very little and just kind of just always thought I could. But interestingly enough, you would think, the older you got, you know you get a little stronger. Interestingly enough, you would think, the older you got you know you get a little stronger, a little wiser. You know you go through the hardest times in your life and if you get through those, you know anything's possible. But it wasn't until recently. Just in the last couple years, I lost my belief in myself. I lost my confidence, my belief in myself. I lost my confidence. I lost my ability to pick myself up and believe that I still could and that I still had anything really worth giving. And so it's kind of crazy that you asked that question, because up until recently I honestly probably wouldn't have had an answer for you.

Speaker 1:

But in the last couple of years I have so and let me just say you know, chris, and I don't talk all the time, even though I think I know what you're talking about yeah, why don't you give a little bit of backstory? We'll go into your other stories. But you know, your life has basically been for the last 25 years, let's just say, being a mom, and I don't say it like just being a mom, so much more than that, but being very, very involved in, but being very, very involved in your kids, your kids' activities, the community coaching, just always going, being there for your own mom. So we'll get into all of those stories, sure, and so you become an empty nester, and I assume that's what you're talking about. So why don't you take us just through your mindset and where you've gotten to now?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so in the last couple of years, I have three kids 23, 21, and 19. And going from being a caregiver, a wife, a mom of three active kids myself, I'm a very high energy person. Whether I had had zero kids or 20 kids, the involvement I've had in the course of the last 20 some years would have been the same. I love children. I was a school teacher and when I had my first son I stopped teaching.

Speaker 2:

So in the last couple of years, life shifted for me in regards to my kids, you know, becoming young adults and going and becoming who they need to be. And I, at the same time, lost my mom and who I had been caring for for about 10 years, and five of those, the last five years, were very, very heavy hands-on on. And at the same time, I stopped coaching, which was a huge part of my life. Because of my injury, I was no longer able to do sports and coaching. I found, through my active kids, I was able to volunteer and do that, and for many, many, many years I was a coach and around the same time, my children were moving on. That ended for me as well. So, losing my mom, losing my role as a coach, losing my children in a way, and the role I played as this active parent, and the role I played as this active parent, it all kind of hit me all at once and I really fell into a whole and oh and COVID, can we say COVID, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So it all just happened in the same timeframe for me, and I can take punches. I've taken many of them. I'm a strong person, I've always had a positive mindset, but I fell into a place of just lack of purpose and my energy, my inspiration for myself, just being able to inspire myself it just fell away. So that's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1:

And I think you also lost from, maybe what you said to me. Maybe you lost a little bit of confidence in your abilities, right?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I didn't know how to parent adults. I was a great mom to zero through 18. I figured that out. I had a lot of time to do that. I was an elementary school teacher. So in the younger ages, I just felt like I had a little more knowledge than the average Joe. Younger ages, I just felt like I had a little more knowledge than the average Joe, just based on my education and my experience professionally. So, yeah, so I definitely lost my confidence in regards to how to parent young adults and you know, feeling like what's my purpose? Now I've been this coach and six, very successful and and, uh, wasn't doing that anymore. So, what, what, what was I? What good was I now? And, um, yeah, my mom and I had this phenomenal connection as I was caring for her. It was, it was, uh, this beautiful fluid. You know, machine we were, we were machined together. And so, yeah, I definitely machine we were, we were machined together. And so, yeah, I definitely I don't think I've ever said that out loud, but I lost my confidence big time.

Speaker 1:

And so how did you find it and tell everyone where you are now? Cause this is kind of like a recent evolution right.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I feel like this conversation really is coming at a beautiful, perfect time, but of course, because, as with life, that is exactly why we need to hold on, because things will come and they will happen and you have to believe. But yes, as of recently, I took a big step and I made a phone call or send an email one day to a local elementary school here in town and about two weeks before school started, and just said hey, I heard you might be hiring teacher assistants and I haven't been in the classroom professionally since 2001. But I have to do something and I'm not okay with just taking another year and feeling sorry for myself and making excuses. And if you're hiring or in need of anybody, please reach out and let me know. And I received a phone call the next morning from the principal and then four days later I was in the building having an interview and walked out with a part-time position, five days a week in a first grade.

Speaker 1:

And feeling nervous, right? I mean not doing that, feeling like I'm ready for this. Oh yeah, I'm totally prepared. Yeah, no like you did it scared right, I did it.

Speaker 2:

I made that email. I can visually remember. I know where I was. I was sitting in my bed under my blankets. It was probably like 5.30 at night and on a Wednesday night, and I had just gotten back two days earlier from taking my daughter back to college 12 hours away, and I was puttering around doing little things, trying to find things for myself to do, and that night I found myself sitting back waiting for my husband to finish work.

Speaker 2:

So then we would have dinner and just the same role, which was really not a role, and I was scared to death and I said there was that voice. It's still in there, that little voice that that little girl heard all those years when things were really really, really tough, no matter what it was. It was still in there saying I'm not giving up on you, Chris, and get it. You know, send that email. And so I did, and I was so scared. And then that phone call came and then I was a little less scared, and then I was a little less scared, and then I went in that Tuesday and with each step that I've taken, I am just less and less scared and more and more like oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

I got this and now it's just a couple of weeks in. How's it?

Speaker 2:

going Eight days, eight days in, and with each day just more and more certain. I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I don't know what each day specifically will bring, but with each day more and more certain that this decision probably saved my life. Oh, I'm not, deb, I'm not exaggerating. I know I'm not and you know I'm not. I'm not the drama queen, I'm not that person.

Speaker 2:

And I thought it today. I thought it in my head today when I was there, I almost said it out loud to the woman whose room I'm assisting in. I almost said it to her because she was like I'm so grateful you're here. I've never had a teaching assistant before. You're making all the difference. And I almost said to her and I don't know why I didn't I maybe feel it because it's only eight days in and I don't want to jump the gun and I think if I say it too soon, maybe the bubble will burst. So I didn't say it, but I thought it and I thought you don't know what that you and this position are doing for me. You know, I really feel like it's definitely changing my life. Maybe I shouldn't be saving my life, maybe I need to get a little further down the road to see just how impactful it will be. But there's no reason for me not to be able to say it's changing my life.

Speaker 1:

And you will yeah, I will, I know you will. Yeah, I will, I know you will yeah. All right, so let's go back and can you talk a little bit about the struggles of your home life and, you know, growing up as a little girl and how you dealt with that and how it kind of shaped you?

Speaker 2:

Sure, yeah, I grew up outside of Northeast Philly in a difficult world, tough world, and I had a mom who was I give her all the credit because every piece of strength and moxie and resilience I have I have to give her credit for. I know she gave it to me and I learned it from her. But I had a very tough childhood. I had an abusive alcoholic father.

Speaker 2:

There was my older sister, my twin brother and myself and my mom and we just lived in fear, we lived in uncertainty, we lived in probably poverty although my mom would never use a word like that, would never even allow us to acknowledge ourselves that we were in any state other than we're good.

Speaker 2:

We're good and you know I can look back on it now, as an adult and knowing more about life and what things, what's good and what's not good, you know and recognize like, oh, not everybody heated their house with their you know oven door open, or having to get up at night in the middle of the night and put wood on the wood burning stove. Or, you know, not everybody had cheese and mustard sandwiches every day for lunch for many, many, many, many years and I didn't know to complain, I didn't know that there was anything wrong with it and we just kind of did it. And again I give credit to my mom because I don't have bad feelings about my childhood. I just don't. I know it was bad, I know there were bad things and I know there were unhealthy things and I know there were difficult things and painful things. But I still never have looked at my childhood as bad. I think of it and I think of how much I got from it.

Speaker 1:

Let me stop you for a minute. When you were in it, when you were living in it, and let's say you know you were dealing with the difficulties with your father and all of that. And you see, your friends, your friends, and they, let's just say, aren't dealing with the same thing. You never thought, well, it sucks to be me aren't dealing with the same thing.

Speaker 2:

You never thought well, it sucks to be me, I did not. I know, deb, I know, and I again. Let's go back to when I was very, very, from when I was very little, I just, I have first of all my memory. I have a little bit of a crazy memory, like I remember alphabetically the names of the kids in my classrooms, from the first person in the row all the way through. I can name them from first grade so I can tell you all my teachers I can. There's things I just have being like okay next.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Did your brother and sister, were they feel the same way or did you see them struggle differently with it.

Speaker 2:

They struggle differently. My brother, I just made sure outside of my home that I found a voice for myself. I was involved in so many things. I loved singing, I loved gymnastics, I loved performing. If there was a talent show, I was performing in it. Nobody helped me. I wasn't at home with my mom or my older sister. I would make up my own acts and I would get up there and I never thought to be embarrassed, never thought like is this good, bad? Or never cared, just put myself out there and just was like I can do it, I can't. I never thought that I can't and I wasn't a super academic kid, but it never bothered me. I just was like this is me and this, this is me and this is me and this is me.

Speaker 2:

My brother, more quiet, more reserved, very well well-behaved, never in trouble, just read, drew, found, escaped through his drawing and his reading, and just very, very more introvert. I was more extrovert and my older sister was so much older. Um, you know she grew up in it and her years in a different time. You know I can't speak to her specifically. It was just definitely different for her and she's also a different person as well. All three of us are very person as well. All three of us are very, very, very different.

Speaker 2:

So I just think I had more of a little fighter's mentality and everything I did, I just and it's to this day I've just got this little fighter mentality in me and while I was going through it I could look and see that other people weren't living the life I was living. But it never really bothered me. I never looked at what they had or what I didn't have. I just was like this is what I got. I never thought like, oh, I wish I could because I wasn't getting it. And again I attributed to my mom just this is us, this is who we are. And I could not look at her and respect that because she was working two, three jobs for us. She was there for us at everything we needed. If we needed it, we had it. But again, need and want and are two very different things when you're living in that world.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, of course. Yeah, all right. So now fast forward. Let's talk about your getting ready to go off to college right.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, I had probably the most tremendous senior year in high school.

Speaker 2:

I loved school. I didn't love school learning necessarily. I was a good student, but I loved school. I would get to school. I would be love school learning. Necessarily. I was a good student, but I loved school. I would get to school. I would be at school all day. I was in multiple activities and clubs and then I would join extra things just to be able to stay later and then I'd get home and then there's always a game or something to be at night. I just I love school. I love being involved. I loved everything night. I just I love school. I love being involved. I loved everything, the people.

Speaker 2:

I had a phenomenal senior year. I it started with being all American for my cheer team and then I was homecoming queen for my class and then I was captain of the track team and then we went to States with my relay and just, and then I got. I was. I got into Westchester university and then I got into Westchester University. I was going to be a school teacher and then I randomly picked up diving my senior year in the winter of my senior year, because I found out they practiced late at night after the other events I was doing were over. So I just joined that and in the course of that year fell in love with it and decided I think I want to do this in college. So my diving coach introduced me to the diving coach at Westchester and my plan was to go to Westchester for teaching and to dive for the swimming and diving team at Westchester.

Speaker 2:

And I was set and I was working that summer teaching diving in the mornings because I was in a local dive team in the summers and um coaching gymnastics for our rec program for our community, which I had been doing for the last four years. And I got up, went to diving that morning, drove my bike to uh cause I didn't have a car, cause can't afford a car Um, drove my bike to gymnastics, coached gymnastics for four hours and then the last five minutes was five minutes was working on a skill with the girls and demonstrated a flip that I'd been doing since I was probably eight years old and over-rotated and fell horribly and died. I was paralyzed in a matter of seconds and that was it. And that was where I went from this physically blessed movement and doing and going and trying even again trying any new things by, even as a senior. I put my mind to it, I was going to do it, and that was the end of that, chris mind to it.

Speaker 1:

I was going to do it and that was the end of that, chris. So, and then you're paralyzed and they tell you, right, what was the prognosis.

Speaker 2:

Prognosis was that my spinal cord was damaged and that they had no idea. Because spinal cords don't heal, nerves will heal. Because spinal cords don't heal, nerves will heal, but they have no idea how to determine the amount of healing my body would do. They said the thing I had going for me was that I was physically fit, I was a petite person and I was young, and then I was obviously the final thing was obviously a very determined young person. Yeah, that's a big final thing yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So you can't or you can't.

Speaker 2:

you have to postpone your college experience right so that was off the table.

Speaker 2:

Surgeries, living in the hospital, rehabs, different rehab hospitals for a full year. And then I, you know, set small goals for myself and slowly but surely was able to have mobility again. My right side came back completely. My left side was very, very delayed and slow and weak and has continued to be for my whole life since then. But my goal was to get back to get to college one year later with no canes, no braces, and I did that. I did that A lovely, adorable limp, because how else am I going to attract attention for myself? I don't have all the sports and all the other stuff. So at least with my limp I know I'm still getting some attention.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you have other ways. I wouldn't worry about that part. But so, okay, you make it sound so simple. Was there a time where you were disgusted or said this is impossible. Or you know, even with that attitude, you're telling me, life deals you this after you're this high and you fall like that at 18 years old? Yeah, was there a time in that journey that you were like why me, and how am I going to do this?

Speaker 2:

So I'm going to. I'm going to tell you the story of how it began for me and that that was like a rebirth for me. And I remember laying on the crash mat that I landed on and facing, you know, up and all the little girls around me, and I'm just trying to stay calm and put things in place, telling the people around me what they should do to help me and calling blah blah blah, police, ambulance, my mom, and this was the era of pay phones, by the way.

Speaker 1:

So you can imagine Right, exactly, you couldn't get a cell phone.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no. And I just remember, at one point, after instructing everyone what to do, what to do, just laying there and I literally said to myself okay, chris, you're paralyzed. You knew it. Wait, you knew it right away, immediately. Immediately because I put my hands on my stomach, like laying there, and I felt like my hands were floating on air and I just kept quickly just moving, moving, moving my hands, and I got up here and that was where I was able to feel myself again and came, you know, to feel connected with myself. And so that was immediate, that was within seconds of it happening, and then said okay, chris, other people live in wheelchairs. I've seen other people doing it there's, you know, on TV and movies around our community. Other people can live in wheelchairs, chris, so can you. And that was the sentence I said to myself within minutes of it happening.

Speaker 2:

And Debbie, I know it's probably very hard for people to imagine an 18-year-old kid even thinking to say that to themselves. Like what put that in my head? But you know it has again, it comes from the life I had experienced all the trials and tribulations. There was nothing that I had been through already and it wasn't good that I hadn't figured out how to live through. So I'm assuming that in that moment it was either me say that to myself or let my mind go down the rabbit hole of I'm not going to, what kind of life will I have? I'm not going to be able to not do that. I'm paralyzed, that's it, Nothing. There's nothing left for me. At 18, I could not do that, and I'm paralyzed, that's it, nothing's, there's nothing left for me at 18. I could not accept that. I had way too much I felt to go still to do. So I I, that's what I said to myself. And so from that moment, I can. It's crazy. I can promise you I did not once. Not through the hospital, not through.

Speaker 2:

There were issues. They burned my back while I was in the hospital because I couldn't feel, and they put a hot pad on it. I had a big hole in my back that I had to heal from, and all these other issues that come along with. As anybody that's ever been in the hospital knows it's. You go in for one thing and along the way, 400 other things happen. Yeah, of course, along the way, all these other things happened.

Speaker 2:

Um, and while there were days that I was like this too. You know I've said those things. But every day I get up and, uh, every day I was said what's, what am I gonna? What's my goal for today, if it's just to be able to sit? You know I wasn't able to sit up. Um, they had to. What's my goal for today, if it's just to be able to sit? You know I wasn't able to sit up. They had to start slowly after my surgery, slowly raising my head. So with each day, you know, I was like I'm determined, five more degrees, I guess, is what they would call it. Five more degrees, five more degrees every day. That was like, okay, there's a win. That was it for me. It was like, you know, oh, today at track, I want to drop a second off my time. Or today at gymnastics, I want to try a new skill For me. I just looked at it like a new sport, as crazy as that sounds.

Speaker 1:

It makes sense. I mean it makes sense and it's especially, I love, love the message really that you're saying, because to me that is how we accomplish anything in those little small steps. Right, if you're trying to go from, I'm paralyzed, I want to be running. That's too far a leap to take your mind and that's too long to wait for the celebration. Right, correct, correct. So this day with the mini goals like that, Correct.

Speaker 2:

So this day, you know, with the mini goals, like that, every day it was mini goals, and then it was. You know, once I was starting to, my leg started to move again, my left leg. Then the next was oh well, homecoming is coming in October. This was now August. This happened in July. End of August, august, my left leg started moving again and then I saw the goal of October homecoming.

Speaker 2:

Oh, um, maybe, maybe I'll be strong enough to walk, uh, even with canes and with somebody helping me to go back to homecoming, to crown next year's homecoming queen, and so that was a goal for me.

Speaker 2:

I was like, oh, I'm gonna, because, again, we know I'm not shy, we know I'm not afraid to get up on stage. That's, that still has my brain and my who I am hasn't changed. So I thought, oh, I can see me getting up there and walking across that field and everybody being like what the you know, and I, I love it. So I just found new ways and new goals to set for this new body and those things, and that's, and I never looked too far down the road. I never looked too far down the road, and one day at a time, one goal at a time and that was really what got me through it, I think, just by being able to set those small goals, and all that came from was all my years of all the sports I did, the things I saw, I set my mind to it and it really prepared me for this crazy, unexpected, life-changing moment.

Speaker 1:

Yep, I can't believe it. 30 minutes is already gone. I'm going to say to you that I didn't even get to half the stories or the things that I wanted to talk about and the messages, really, that I wanted to make sure that the audience got. So do you think in the next few weeks you'll come back and we can continue our conversation?

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness, that must mean I did okay, please, we need to have a heart too, but I love that we're ending.

Speaker 1:

I love that we're ending today on the whole message of the small goals and I think, to celebrate the small goals, yeah, definitely, don't just take them for granted.

Speaker 2:

So pat yourself on the back any chance you get, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Exactly All right my friends.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to have to leave you with this, but I want you to be inspired by part one of what you've heard from my amazing friend Chris today and I hopefully, maybe two weeks from today can get her back on the calendar if she's free, and we will pick up where we left off and in the meantime, I will see you and talk to you all next week. Thanks everyone, thanks for spending part of your day with me here on Maybe I Can, exploring possibilities one sprinkle at a time. It's been great having you and I hope you're leaving with a spark to light up your journey to more. Remember, every big change starts with a single maybe. If you're ready to kickstart that change but not sure where to begin, I've got just the thing for you.

Speaker 1:

Head over to download my free guide, the One Critical Step to Kickstart Change and take that all-important first step. Let's make those maybes into reality, one sprinkle at a time. Catch you next Tuesday at 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific, with more stories, tips and that extra push you might need. I'm Debbie saying goodbye for now, but always remember maybe, just maybe, you can.

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