Paralysed Dubai man's amazing comeback

One moment it was perfectly sublime. The morning sun was just beginning to lighten the sky above the desert in Al Faqa area, off Al Ain Road, and Chris Khouri was savouring the blast of air whipping his face as he sped across the sand on his KTM 535 motocross bike, in pursuit of his two friends. Then, suddenly, his bike hit a clump of bush on a dune, propelling him into the air. At first it didn't worry him particularly; this had happened too many times to count. Besides, he was wearing all the safety gear available. But this time it ended differently. When he came down on the hard camel grass, somersaulting and hitting his head on the hard sand before rolling onto his back, Chris instinctively knew he had broken something.

"The first thing I thought about was my neck," he says. "I moved my head and it was fine. I moved my arms and they worked, so I gave the OK sign to the two guys who were riding ahead of me and had stopped when they heard me fall. But when I looked down, I knew something was wrong. My legs were in a weird position, lying crooked. Even then I thought I had just broken them, because I didn't feel any pain at that point. But the moment I reached down I felt nothing. I just kept reaching higher and higher up my body, from my stomach onto my chest, still no feeling. It was then that it truly dawned on me that something had gone terribly wrong."

Chris had broken all his ribs and his back and had severed his spinal cord. In medical terms, Chris was a T6 ASIA A paraplegic, meaning he had no feeling or function at all below the upper chest level.

"It's strange that at that very moment the first thought that popped into my head was that my life had changed dramatically," says Chris. "That first thought was a surprise to me because it was so out of character. ‘This is my new reality.' I actually said it out loud."

That was almost three years ago, and he's kept saying that almost every day since. That is what helps keep him grounded.

Chris also learnt to use humour to deal with his situation. Since the accident, people rarely get to see the Dutch-Lebanese account manager without his cheerful grin. When Chris wheels himself into the room what strikes you is his positive good cheer. With his boyish grin, dimpled chin and twinkling grey eyes, Chris could be a poster boy. And when you speak to him you realise that he's just that - not only for people in wheelchairs, but for every person confined by any kind of disability.

"I push myself to do all the things I was able to before I had the accident, so that others in a similar position can see that they don't need to just waste away," he says. "I know what they are going through. When you become disabled there is a moment when you feel you'll never be able to do anything any more, and you are pretty much useless to the world and society - even yourself."

To prove to himself and the world that he could be as good as anyone else, Chris starting participating in marathons - just five months after his accident. "I did the first Dubai Marathon 10-kilometre race in January 2010," he says. "I loved the challenge, I loved the feeling of being there, among people who are working hard, doing my best, pushing myself, being equal to everyone else. I participated in my regular chair. And since I was the only participant in a wheelchair, you can say that I came first!" 

No time to waste

It was probably because Chris accepted his new reality so soon that he began his preparation to tackle the situation straight away. "In many ways from that moment onwards I started working on the healing rather than the grieving," he says. "It's not that there wasn't any grieving. I still go through my low times. But from that moment on I knew that was it -I had to mentally pull myself up from there. I was very fortunate that I was able to grow from it rather than tumble into the darkness.

"Earlier, before the accident, I was sarcastic, cynical and negative. There are a lot of people like that. I was an opportunistic pessimist. But when this incident happened to me I had no choice but to shed it. I must have had this positive attitude in me before but it never came out."

"It hasn't been easy…" says Chris, and then he changes his mind and corrects it to, "It's been three very interesting years. It's not all nice and rosy, and sometimes some of my old negative character comes back, and I have to fight it.''

When he talks about how he came to terms with his condition, he says "It's not something that I fight, I've learnt to accept it. I am building upon it, using it to my advantage. That may be the reason I am a much better person now than I was before the accident. I am much more active now. I am more aware of myself and others, and the fragility of things, people, and life itself. I've learnt to count my blessings. It sounds like a cliché, and it's a difficult thing to say, but it's true, you know."

Lifeline of family and friends

Chris spent the first five days after the accident in a daze at the Rashid Hospital, Dubai, before being flown to Holland by air ambulance for treatment. "I was in shock, shot up with medication to ease the pain," says Chris. "The rock then was my wife Sylvia who had to deal with everything, take all the critical decisions including taking me to Holland for treatment and rehabilitation, managing our two very small children, Noah and Eva, then aged 2 and 3 respectively. We decided on Holland as I am half Dutch and she's Dutch too. My employers, Cisco, were great supporting us all the way with the treatment, and even offering me my job back after I was well enough to return."

The first two months in Holland were spent in hospital. Chris was required to be immobilised and under heavy medication for a while. He could have been out of hospital in a month, but unfortunately developed a serious bacterial infection that made the recovery slower and prolonged his stay. Then came another four months in rehabilitation.

"In rehab you learn everything from scratch again," says Chris. "You are basically a baby learning everything again in order to gain independence. You learn to move, to take care of yourself, to wash, to use the wheelchair, to manage your bladder and bowels... These were days filled from morning to evening with various physiotherapy sessions, sports (biking, basketball), fitness, wheelchair training, psychological support, the works."

For Chris, the stay in Amsterdam was a true blessing and an incredible morale boost.

"The rehab centre being located on the edge of Amsterdam's Central Park, I was constantly drawn to the park for coffee or strolls with my many visitors. When I was not in therapy at the centre, I was in the park seeing how far I could roll, how much I could improve from the pervious day, whether I could get to the next coffee house without totally exhausting myself. By the end of the fourth month, I would cross the park on a daily basis to visit my friends, or hop from café to café without even thinking about it."

Chris returned to Dubai towards the end of the year. It was to be a new year in more ways than one - he learned the value of friends. "Those who stood by us went through all our trials and tribulations with us," he says. "But not all of my friends stuck with us. There were many who just couldn't handle it, and I can't blame them. But there were so many who came to us through social networking sites such as facebook, that it was incredible. It was almost a lifeline for me then."

Surprisingly the impetus to get back to normality came from his son Noah's negative reaction. "I was very close to my son prior to the accident," says Chris. "After the accident he became very distant. It was all very gory for him, to see his dad in bed with tubes sticking out of him. In a way, I wanted to make it up to him and become close to him again.'' 

Dealing with a setback

For Chris, the darkest period was not immediately after the accident, but five months later. "I was doing really well in terms of improving my movements with physiotherapy," he says. He had learnt to lift his hips using his hands, turn over on his bed and could get into and out of his wheelchair on his own.

"But all of a sudden one day I was in great pain, and getting tremors in my legs though I couldn't feel them. They went stiff, and I couldn't move them at all. That took me back to the beginning, pushing back all the mobility I had achieved until then. Everything I had learned in the past four months was lost. The doctors couldn't tell me why. I still don't know how I dealt with it."

A medical solution was found by the Dutch doctors where medicine was directly injected into his spine to reduce the rigidness in Chris's legs. However, it did not relieve the pain. That he had to learn to deal with on his own.

"I am in pain constantly, and although you can't get used to pain, people in such situations learn to embrace the pain and say the pain is just a part of it," says Chris with a smile. "And when you get to know the pain, you can learn to control what makes it stronger or weaker. The pain that is known becomes a friend. It's OK. It's when a new pain appears that I begin stressing out, until I learn its kinks."

The pain Chris lives with is a rather severe neuropathic pain in his lower extremities, belly and elbows. "It's unfortunately constant, though has been much better since we found the right dosage of medication," he explains. "The pain is a horrible feeling of extreme burning on the outside coupled with the sensation of being stabbed with a million needles from the inside. Oh yeah, and it triggers involuntary and painful spasms as well. I have no choice but to live with it, embrace the pain in order to ‘get used to it' and pray that the meds will continue working!"

What helped Chris pull through it all was the feeling that he owed it to his family and friends. "After all the support and help they gave me I had to make it up to them," he says. "I am blessed with an attitude, that's ‘no excuses'. We all have problems, we all have issues. Mine are more apparent; I am in a wheelchair. Who doesn't want to help a guy in a wheelchair? In a way, my situation is easier than many other people's.

"There are so many out there who are uncomfortable in their skin, heartbroken, dealing with sickness, family problems, the whole gamut. Everybody has challenges and we need to deal with them and there's no excuse for not following your dreams, not being the best you can be, not trying harder.

"My goal of returning to Dubai as a fully independent person was fulfilled," he says. "I could move, take care of myself, get in and out of bed or live completely independently. For me that was a huge achievement, and I was extremely proud of myself." 

Sport as rehabilitation

Today his routine is four hours of physiotherapy, and three hours of personal training, and three hours of swimming with coaches every week. He also cycles a special bike that he pedals with his hands, three hours a week.

"I'll never walk again, that's clear in my head. Now, it's how comfortable and how good and how active can I be in my wheelchair," he says cheerfully. "What can I do to make my life as comfortable and as independent as possible, that's what I am obsessed with."

The physiotherapy sessions he's been doing at the Osteopathic Health Centre in Dubai are what makes him so confident. "They believe that I can get better. They believe there's more to this than just the spinal cord, they believe the body can heal itself, and that there's a peripheral nervous system that you can learn to control. It's really hard work, but I am learning to control my body."

So how does it work? "I can't attempt a medical explanation," says Chris, "What I know is that medically I have no function below the chest level T6, and there is no communication at all between the brain and any of the nerves or muscles below the injury level.

"Yet, with the intensive physio that I do with my therapist Renata, with the constant stimulation of the muscles through intense exercise-based recovery programmes and a steady continuous repetition of movements, I was able to regain an impressive amount of balance, strength and thus quality of life."

Their encouragement made Chris take up sport as part of his rehabilitation. "I had to prove myself, and sport is the easiest way to do it," he says.

Since the time in 2010 when Chris ran the ten-kilometre race at the Dubai Marathon, he's done the full 42-kilometre Dubai marathon twice - in 2011 on his handbike and in 2012 on his regular wheelchair.

"Participating in an event is extremely stimulating and motivating," says Chris. "I know I need to stay healthy and strong - after all, I only have less than one third of my body that still works. I know I need to train, might as well do it for a purpose.

"My training, swimming, biking and rolling during the week and weekends, done with a goal in mind is extremely motivating. And ‘competing' against able-bodied athletes makes me feel very very good.

"At the end of the day, there are times where I do not have the motivation to be positive, where I feel down, where I feel both physically and emotionally exhausted, where everything feels horrible. Yet, the fighting spirit remains, and it is that spirit that keeps me going, makes me jump on my bike and go for a long ride, and forget everything else!"

Chris, who has always been a sports lover, in January last year was the only disabled athlete to compete in the Tri Yas Triathlon at Yas Marina Circuit. He did the 10-kilometre race in his wheelchair to finish in two-and-a-half hours. A friend stood in for him in the 1.5-kilometre swimming part of the triathlon as he was unable to swim at the time.

"This means I've participated in the Dubai Marathon, the RAK half-marathon, the Abu Dhabi Triathlon, and this year's Tri Yas triathlon," he says. And this year he also swam part of the triathlon. 

Setting an example

What Chris craves is normality. "It's that aspect of normality when people treat you like you are normal, that's gratifying," he says. "Today when my kids clamber all over me, using me as a push cart in the supermarkets, that's normality. The worst thing is when people treat you like you're different.

"The reason I am going out and doing all this is so that other people who are confined to wheelchairs may see that there's life beyond the chair," says Chris. "I know there are a lot of people who are confined to wheelchairs in this country. But where are they? I'd like to see them out and becoming a part of society."

Chris knows only too well what happens when limbs are allowed to go waste. "I want people who suffer such injuries, especially the ones who've just been in an accident, to believe that it's possible to have a life that is fulfilling outside of their wheelchair," he says passionately. "That's why I participate in all public events in my regular wheelchair. I want them to know."

He has a full calendar of triathlons in future. "I know I am reaching 40 and my body is growing older, but hey, I feel good!" he enthuses. "And I won't use that as an excuse! And who knows, maybe I can have a shot at the 2016 Paralympics!"