WELLS, Maine —
The people who know Emily Maki best would describe her as a light, a ray of sunshine, and an incredible teammate.
Those same people have now rallied around the young mother from Wells after a freak accident at the gym left her paralyzed from the waist down back in September.
Maki was doing a "clean and press," a common workout in the CrossFit community. The lift involves taking a weight from the floor and pressing it overhead before returning the weight to the floor. Maki lost control of the weight while she was mid-lift.
"To talk about the accident itself is still very traumatic for me. What I was doing [was] something that I literally had done 600 times before," Maki said. "I woke up every morning ... and worked out with my friends every single day. I was doing something that I love to do that I did routinely and ... the world [changed] that day."
Maki continued, "I do remember the ambulance ride with my boss. It was probably one of the hardest things I've ever been through. I remember going over some train tracks and being an agony."
Since the accident, Maki has been focused on her recovery at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
"It's been kind of like a roller coaster of emotions, you know, some days I definitely grieve my legs and my lifestyle," Maki said. "I had this very carefree lifestyle that I had prior to the accident. But then other days, I'm like, 'I got this,' you know what I mean, like, I definitely have got this."
"It's a challenge, everything is going to look totally different but, 100 percent, I've got this," Maki added.
That recovery process has included everything from learning how to navigate new, everyday tasks like getting in and out of her wheelchair to using equipment known as a Lokomat, to help with possible mobility and sensations later down the road.
According to her physical therapist, the Lokomat is a robotic exoskeleton that allows Maki to walk on a treadmill, by getting strapped into a harness and lifted over the treadmill.
Her legs are also strapped into braces that act as joints and move Maki's legs for her. The robot does most of the work, and as progress is made, Maki will rely less and less on the machine for movement.
"It's kind of step one for neurorecovery after a spinal cord injury," Maki's physical therapist, Theresa said.
"Research shows doing kind of a walking motion with the pressure ... that should be kind of sparking things in her body potentially to help her nerves and her spinal chord and her brain all work together and kind of work on waking up a little bit — see if we can get any neuro recovery out of that," Theresa said.
"It's foreign when I look down and I see my feet going," Maki said as she used the machine. "It feels really bizarre because I can't feel them. I can just see them. So, that's a little bit wild. It's also difficult to stay upright ... I really have to engage everything because it's your core."
Maki has kept everyone back home in Maine posted through her Instagram account, "One More Rep For Em." Her gym community has especially been cheering her on from afar from the very beginning.
Andre and Katie Mercier own the gym where Emily's accident happened.
"Everyone was just heartbroken. We had to just kind of pull people aside and tell them one-on-one because we knew everybody would just be really shook up by it," Katie Mercier said. "So, a lot of sadness at first because it sucks straight-up but then, as they do, they rally, and they say, 'What can we do?' That's one of the coolest parts about our gym is all these helpers."
Those helpers have created a GoFundMe page, bumper stickers, even a workout called the "Maki." They have been doing anything and everything to help raise awareness and most importantly, money for Maki and her son Eben.
"She's going to be in a wheelchair all the time, so everything is going to have to be accessible for that," Mercier said. "It's important for her to be as independent as possible, so, you're talking about being able to reach the kitchen cupboards, being able to go through the doorways, being able to use the bathroom and shower and stuff like that by yourself. We are starting to look into a car for her, and what it takes for her to have an adaptive car so she can be mobile and hopefully find a job that she can be doing and take Eben around just like she normally would."
Despite her new reality, Maki said she is genuinely looking forward to her new normal. She looks at her wheelchair as her "new gym," since working out has always been a huge part of her life.
"Silly things like putting my shoes on, putting my pants on. It's a workout, but I get to be good at it and I get to try my best to do everything to the best of my ability," Maki said. "And this is my gym, it seems pretty minuscule, it seems pretty silly, but this is my life and I'm going to make the best of it — it's just going to look different."
When asked how she kept that perspective, Maki replied:
"You have to, you get to choose. Every face you see throughout the course of a day, every interaction you have, you get to choose how you treat that person and how you leave that person, and it's a choice. And don't get me wrong, there are days that are like, 'I'm going to break down,' you know, I'm going to have a little cry sesh or a big cry sesh because life is hard, but when you come out of it, it's all a perspective, you know. I'm here, I get to choose, I get to choose to put a smile on my face and nine times out of 10, when you put a smile on your face, you feel better."