From wheelchair to walker to walking, Derby resident takes life in stride

At 6-feet, 10-inches and 450 pounds, Jason Schneiter looks like little could hurt him.

But the 34-year-old lived with chronic back pain for more than half of his life and earlier this year, it put him in a wheelchair. For a while, he — and his family, doctors and physical therapists — wondered whether he might ever walk again.

His story of recovery is one of staying positive, handling what life deals you and family.

Schneiter has congenital stenosis of the spine, which means he was born with a narrow spinal canal. The back pain started when he was 15 years old and active in sports in Andover.

He underwent his first surgery at age 17. A piece of a disc in his back had broken off and calcified around the nerves. Surgery fixed that.

But “everyday pain was normal for me,” said Schneiter, who lives in Derby with his family.

In 2009, he underwent another surgery.

Then this past April, uncontrollable pain struck again. Schneiter took it easy for three or four days, and most of the pain went away. Then it came back.

An MRI showed severe stenosis of his L3 and L4 vertebrae. The pain had gotten so bad that Schneiter was flat on his back for about three weeks before his third surgery July 8.

“It just felt like my legs were on fire,” he said. “It hurt to the bone.”

Ryan Stuckey, his orthopedic surgeon, operated on him.

“I woke up and couldn’t feel my feet, my legs,” Schneiter said of the surgery, another laminectomy, which aims to enlarge the spinal canal to relieve pressure.

He was a patient at Via Christi Rehabilitation Hospital from July 11 until his fourth surgery Sept. 5, a spinal fusion with revision laminectomies and decompression.

“I came out of that one wiggling my toes and moving my legs,” Schneiter said.

After the surgery, he was in the hospital about a week and then back to the rehabilitation hospital for another week. He’s been home since mid-September.

He went into his fourth surgery in a wheelchair. He left the hospital walking.

“I couldn’t go very far, but I walked out without a walker,” he said.

Taking stock of life

Schneiter is doing physical therapy now as an outpatient and working on building his strength.

He credits the staff at the rehab hospital for getting him through some dark days.

He said he never saw anyone in a bad mood. Instead, everyone kept an upbeat attitude. He thinks that rubbed off.

“It’s a psychological thing, a lot of it,” he said of recovery. “They were positive, so I wanted to be positive.

“There were nights you don’t sleep and you sit and stare at the ceiling. It really makes you take stock in how you live your life.”

When he realized he had no feeling in his legs after the third surgery, he kept telling himself it was temporary.

After a while, though, he started thinking he might never walk again. He thought about how his parents’ home might have to be modified for him. A truck driver, he wondered whether he would ever be able to work again. He credits his parents, who have helped him financially during his recovery, for taking a lot of stress off him. Without them, he said, he’s not sure where he’d be.

And plenty of people at the rehab hospital had it worse than he did, he said.

It probably sounds strange, Schneiter admits, but he almost didn’t want to leave the rehab hospital.

“It’s a fun place to be,” he said. “It really is. The food was even good.”

After fourth surgery

Waneta Yoder, his physical therapist on the outpatient side at the rehab hospital, was stunned when Schneiter walked into therapy after his fourth surgery.

“I told her, ‘I want to walk without this stupid walker,’ ” he said. “Her jaw dropped.”

Schneiter couldn’t walk far at first, maybe 60 to 70 feet before he had to sit and rest.

But during the past few weeks, “he’s made amazing progress,” Yoder said. “He had a lot of weakness in his legs when we first started. He’s made tremendous strides in strength.

“When he first left the hospital, he left with a wheelchair. He has since returned that wheelchair. He must have had a guardian angel looking out for him.”

Stuckey said his patient is doing “phenomenal.”

“He’s walking with no assistive devices,” he said. “He was wheelchair-bound. He can drive again.”

Schneiter said he figures more surgery likely is in his future.

“But hopefully this will give me several years of no-to-low pain,” he said. “It would be nice to golf again.”

This story was originally published November 30, 2014 at 1:24 PM with the headline "From wheelchair to walker to walking, Derby resident takes life in stride."