Paralyzed Healdsburg teen regains some feeling

Katka Ripova was stretching and massaging her paralyzed son?s right hand in the intensive care unit at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

Abruptly, 18-year-old Honza Ripa said: ?Mom, look,? and slightly bent his thumb and forefinger.

?He was so amazed, his eyes lit up,? said Ripova, 43, a single mother who grew up in communist Czechoslovakia and came to California in 2000.

Ripa, a prep golf star who graduated from Healdsburg High School in May, had lain virtually immobile since breaking his neck in a Russian River swimming accident June 13.

?Did you do it?? Ripova asked, stunned and needing to know if the inch of motion was intentional or merely a muscle spasm.

It was for real, and now, a week later, Ripa can move all four fingers and his thumb. If someone bends his right elbow to a 90-degree angle, he can move it back and forth a bit.

Medically, it means some motor nerves have managed to reconnect across the injured part of his spinal cord. No one knows if Ripa will regain any more control of his wiry, 6-foot-1, 160-pound body.

But emotionally, the movement has transformed life for Ripova; her boyfriend, Steve Kanzler; and her older son, Vojta, 20.

With one functional hand, Honza Ripa could operate a wheelchair and a computer. He could be mobile, productive and expressive, like Stephen Hawking, the British theoretical physicist who is the world?s best-known quadriplegic.

Nor would Ripa, who has a take-charge personality, remain dependent on others for nearly everything, a prospect his family refuses to accept.

?Now we have so much more hope,? Ripova said.

But a long, expensive and uncertain way still lies ahead.

Ripa still needs 24/7 care at Memorial. To combat bedsores, he must be moved every two hours, a two-person chore that disrupts his sleep and causes pain in his injured neck.

He can?t clear fluid from his lungs and airway by coughing or throat-clearing. Instead, Ripa regularly needs to have a suction tube inserted down his throat, an uncomfortable but critical procedure.

He?s free of the ventilator and the breathing tube that initially went through his mouth, but it?s been replaced by a 4-inch tube inserted through a surgically fashioned hole in his throat. A flexible blue hose delivers oxygen to the tube.

He can talk when a valve is attached to the external portion of the tube, enabling Ripa to push air through his larynx.

But the valve makes it harder for him to breathe, so Ripa likes keeping it off. With his diaphragm paralyzed, Ripa breathes only with his upper chest muscles and inhales about half the volume of a normal person, slowing his metabolism.

Ripa quickly learned to summon nurses with a loud clicking of his tongue.

He can?t transfer to a spinal cord injury rehab center in San Jose until a bedsore at the base of his spine heals and he can sit in a wheelchair for three hours.

Ripa has good days, when he feels relatively comfortable and enjoys visits from his teen friends. Brianna Angell, a senior at Healdsburg High, has orchestrated fund-raising events that have generated $38,000.

Donation jars are still out in Healdsburg, and contributions to the Honza Ripa Recovery Fund may be made at any branch of Exchange Bank.

On bad days, Ripa suffers from fever or bouts of nausea. He doesn?t say much about what?s on his mind, which Kanzler said is ?pretty typical for an 18-year-old.? Czech people are, by nature, fairly stoic and not emotionally expressive, he said.

Kanzler and Ripova said they worry that Ripa ?is angry at himself and may blame himself for what happened.?

No one saw how Ripa got hurt that afternoon at Eagle Rock, a popular swimming hole on the Russian River at Healdsburg. Angell said she saw him do a back flip off the rock, then swim toward her with no trouble.

Ripa has no memory of any fateful impact. There were no signs of trauma on his head or neck. He was airlifted to Memorial, and before he went into surgery he told family members that he ?remembers floating in the water, realizing he couldn?t move, thinking he was drowning and not being able to do anything about it,? Kanzler said.

Life for his loved ones has been upended.

Ripova missed two days of work as a Healdsburg dental assistant, and has visited her son every day since, usually after 8 p.m. when the treatments and doctors? visits have ended.

She reads to her son, massages his arms and legs to stave off the effects of immobility. They talk about his treatment, the fund-raisers and what?s going on in the world.

?Sometimes I?ll come in and tell him Tiger (Woods) won again,? said Kanzler, 58.

Ripa likes it best when friends talk to him as if nothing has changed. Honza and brother Vojta, who came to the U.S. speaking little English, spent about half their lives learning to fit into a new culture.