Nearly three years ago, Eric Abrahamson woke up one day and couldn’t walk. Doctors found an infection in his spine.
“I was completely paralyzed from my waist down,” Abrahamson said.
“I ended up getting surgery that opened up my back and then they found out my spine had been deteriorating so they had to rebuild it.”
Abrahamson was told he would never walk again and was sent to the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital to help him learn the skills he would need while using his wheelchair.
“I just forced myself to not think that way, that I would be stuck in that chair,” he said. ” I kept thinking that if I just keep working on it someday it would come back and one day it did.
“They taught me enough skills to make me independent in my chair, but I wanted more than that.”
Abrahamson went from using a wheelchair to standing.
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“Even standing was hard,” he said.
He then took a few steps, and eventually moved from using a walker to walking poles to walking independently.
“Once I stood up, then I took a step, then a couple of more steps,” he said. “I kept working hard through the pain.
“It was a scary thing to fall, even though we fall down our whole lives, right? All of a sudden, because of an injury, I’m scared to look at the ground.”
But he pushed through and his determination inspired his therapists.
“He really exceeded our expectations,” said Oline Okholm, a therapy assistant at the Glenrose. “From one session to another, we could see that he had improved because he had been working so hard at home.”
“I think as therapists, we tend to try and be cautiously optimistic,” Asya Shiloff-Rogers, physical therapist, told Global News.
“It’s hard to know where they’re going to end up. Eric was someone who really surprised me. “
That determination, and a desire to connect with other patients, has earned Abrahamson a 2025 Glenrose Courage Award.
“Even in the hallway when he was walking and out of breath and struggling, if someone he knew or recognized that was another patient or a staff member passed by, he would say like, ‘Hey, have a great day,’ or if it was a patient, he’d say, ‘You’re doing so good, you look great,'” Shiloff-Rogers said.
“I think that level of engagement was just really inspiring.”
Abrahamson said he wouldn’t be where he is today without the staff at the Glenrose.
“If they would have just sent me home in my chair I probably would have just stayed in my chair,” he said, crediting the Glenrose with helping him “push through the pain.”
Abrahamson will be honoured with a Glenrose Courage Award on Nov. 4.
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