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PLANO - For more than a decade, Jim Liebo fought for the
well-being of his son Eric, who at age 4 suffered a stroke that
caused brain damage.
But now Jim is fighting for himself.
This summer, the Plano father of three stumbled in his bedroom and
injured his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.
Now both Jim and Eric, who is still unable to speak, require
full-time care.
Before the accident, Jim, a self-described "Type A" personality,
never could sit still for long. Now he spends much of his days
sitting in a wheelchair or lying in a hospital bed in a downstairs
guest room.
Jim, 43, speaks with the same determination and hope about his
future as he did when planning for his son.
Eric, now 15, still has the mental capacity of a toddler and can
follow only the simplest of commands.
"I talked to a guy with the same [spinal cord] injury, and he's
been in the chair for three years - he just gave up," Jim says. "He
said, 'Man, you're so positive.' But you have to be. When you hit
rock bottom, you can't go any lower than that.
"You might as well look up."
But the reality is that it can be overwhelming. And in the quiet of
the night, Jim cries.
"That's when it hits me," he says.
Sometimes, says his wife, Tina, "I can't even think about it." The
only way to deal with the family's heartache, she says, is to take
each day as it comes - minute by minute.
She still has to work at her parents' clothing boutique, keep track
of her children's school and sports activities, and keep the
household running.
"I'm trying to get back to some sense of normal," she says. "You
don't know how much you depend on someone until you can't do it
anymore. Jim always took really good care of me, and now I have to
take care of him.
"But there are times when I think there's no way I can do this. If
you told me before that this is what we'd have to go through, I'd
say, 'I can't do that. No way.' It was the same with Eric. But you
just deal with it."
During the day, the Liebos use humor to deal with it all.
Previously published 06:48 PM CDT on Friday, October 29, 2004
By LAURA GRIFFIN / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Patient'S Story
Jim Leibo, before CleanLeaf Pharmaceuticals