Johnathan Taylor closed his eyes and left the room for a moment.
He blacked out the scene inside the Shepherd Center gym — the teenager in a wheelchair doing triceps presses, another kid passing through on a self-propelled gurney — and in his head went to that place where athletes go just before meeting a hard, hard job.
He drew in a deep breath. Pursed his lips tight against his teeth. Began to rock his upper body in time with the physical therapist’s count.
One.
Two.
Threeeeee.
And on cue, with a small groan and a big push from his core, he did it: Taylor rolled over from his back onto his left side.
Until he was paralyzed two months ago in a collision with a teammate, the 21-year-old Georgia outfielder tested himself against 90 mph fastballs that flit like dragonflies at dusk. He ran down every slicing line drive and rainbow pop-up in his ZIP code.
Typical of Taylor’s on-field persona was the play in which he broke his neck — a full-speed, headlong dive for a fly ball, his focus solely on that dying white dot, not on charging center fielder Zach Cone. He collided with Cone with such force that two of the vertebrae in his neck were wrenched out of place, damaging the surrounding nerves.
His daily physical trials are on a vastly smaller scale now, set in the corridors and crannies of Atlanta’s Shepherd Center, the facility dedicated to the treatment and rehabilitation of spinal cord injuries. Victories are measured in minute, intimate increments.
Small victories
Being able to scratch an itch becomes a parade-worthy event. Having slowly regained limited use of his arms and hands, Taylor no longer has to ask for help when his nose tingles.
His hands are a long way from regaining their old dexterity, but last week Taylor took up a video game controller for the first time since the accident — playing baseball, of course. At the last report, he was 1-1 against Georgia Bulldogs athletic trainer Mike Dillon.
In therapy, using his increasingly reliable arms for support, Taylor is able to sit upright on a padded table. He thus far has maintained much of his muscle tone and is constantly pushing for extra time on the center’s exercise equipment.
“It’s a big deal to be able to play a video game; it’s a big deal to be able to brush your teeth and put on a shirt,” said Dillon, the Georgia trainer who commutes from Athens five days a week to support Taylor.
Considering Taylor’s starting point, these seemingly simple tasks are significant landmarks on a long recovery.
After surgery to stabilize his spine at St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens, Taylor was admitted to the Shepherd Center on March 11. He had little use of his arms and still was connected to a respirator.
Breathing well on his own now, and having mastered the steering of an electric wheelchair, Taylor has ever increasing mobility. In late April he attended the Georgia-Georgia Tech baseball game at Turner Field, sitting in the dugout with his old teammates, absorbing all their abuse about the first tentative sprouts of a new beard. Last Wednesday, he went on a movie outing — seeing “Fast Five” and giving it two thumbs up.
“I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress,” Taylor said. “I’ve learned a lot of things about my body. I’m getting my strength back. And I’ve learned to appreciate a lot of the little things.”
There remains much to do. On May 26, Taylor is scheduled to check out of his Shepherd hospital room, the one now decorated wall-to-wall with gifts and get-well wishes. Among the collection is a row of jerseys hanging above his window, ranging from one that Orlando Magic guard J.J. Redick hand-delivered during his team’s recent playoff series against the Hawks to one given to him by a local Little League team. On the wall behind his bed is a poster from a young fan who received instruction from Taylor at a Bulldogs baseball camp, and nearby a card from San Francisco Giant (and Georgia native) Buster Posey. On a window ledge are signed balls from Hank Aaron and Tommy Lasorda and Larry Munson.
“I’m not much of a talker, but I guess I had an effect on a lot of people,” Taylor said with a small smile.
Life after
Taylor’s next step is Shepherd’s “Day Program,” where he will live in a nearby dormitory while continuing his rehabilitation for a month or so. He hopes to take a few online courses to get back on track for his consumer economics degree, then return to Athens in time for the fall semester.
There is the ever-looming question that makes the health experts grind their teeth: Will he ever walk again?
While saying those with injuries like Taylor rarely regain full use of their legs, Dr. Donald Leslie, the Shepherd Center’s medical director, said, “It’s an age-old question and the answer to it is we still do not know.
“At this point, no, he’s not walking. That’s not germane. What is germane is that he is healthy. He is adapting to his disability, and we’re giving him either the equipment or the strategies or the information to help him live with his present level of disability.”
Some patients, Leslie said, focus on the goal of walking to the exclusion of all others. “They’ll kind of shut down on the interim things that are necessary for day-to-day life, for making one’s self as independent as one can be,” he said. Taylor is not a part of that group, the doctor hastened to add.
What those around Taylor have noted is the quiet resoluteness he has brought to rehab.
“His mental attitude is awesome,” Leslie said. “He’s focused; he’s calm; he’s determined; he’s intelligent. He’s amazing. I’m so impressed with him, and so is everybody who’s working with him.”
That attitude runs throughout the family. His mother, Tandra Taylor, raised three boys, Johnathan — or J.T. as everyone calls him — being the oldest. After his injury, she put aside her work as an accountant, with a side job running a cleaning service, to move into a Shepherd residence and oversee the rebuilding of her boy. Brothers Jarred, 19, and Jawuan, 17, are back home in Acworth.
She is a high-energy caregiver, as talkative as her son is quiet. Of course, the diagnosis of J.T.’s injury was a devastating blow. But, she said, her mind quickly shifted to the positive thought that “thankfully my son is still alive, and as long as he’s alive we still have hope.”
Now, her days are built entirely around J.T.’s routine, the mornings consumed by the tedious process of bathing and dressing, the afternoons of additional therapy, the constant evening visits from UGA teammates and friends.
In the past two months, she’s become part of a community bordered by hospital walls, one in which her son has become something of a role model. With pride, Tandra tells of an exchange with another patient, one that began with her simple question, “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been kinda down,” the young man answered. “But I’m better now. Your son helped me. He’s never down.”
Relearning
The loss that the Taylors have suffered is immeasurable. Baseball was the center of J.T.’s life, and his body was an instrument for playing that game with joy and verve. He was the short-in-stature (5 foot 8) player at North Cobb High School and the summertime East Cobb program who had to play a little harder than his brawnier teammates to make it to Division I college ball. To have so much snatched away in a moment, to have his body so completely short-circuited, is a profound cruelty.
J.T. does not indulge in any deep conversation about his loss.
Of course, he misses playing baseball, every day.
Yes, he gets frustrated when his body won’t obey his commands. And he frets about the future.
“I try not to think about any of that stuff,” he said. “I’m just trying to get better.
“I can’t think about anything negative. I don’t complain about anything they have me do [in therapy]. I just do it. I don’t say anything. I just get through it.”
As he does the hard work of relearning every movement — committing himself, as he always did with baseball — those around him are moved, too.
Tandra has noted how her tight little family has grown even tighter these last few months.
The world seems to be rooting for him — just look around the walls of his cluttered hospital room.
Dillon, the baseball trainer who wears out the road between Athens and Atlanta, said that his former player has been positive and upbeat on his each and every visit.
And you know what? Dillon’s drive home doesn’t seem so long any more.
“I always leave here positive and upbeat because of him.”
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