A lifelong runner, Glenn, 65, had always trusted his body without question. But in late 2022, something began to change. His left leg weakened, his gait faltered, and simple movements became exhausting. At first, he tried to push through, hoping it was temporary. But his symptoms worsened and became harder to ignore.
One evening, while attending a performance in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Glenn realized he couldn’t climb the stairs at the venue to their seats. He had to lift his leg with his hands. The moment was frightening—not only because of what it meant physically, but because of what it suggested might come next.
After months of tests and appointments, Glenn was diagnosed with a spinal arteriovenous malformation—a tangle of blood vessels near his spinal cord. It was so rare that one neurologist admitted he had seen only a handful of cases like Glenn’s in his career. Surgery in March 2023 to remove the tangle saved Glenn’s life. But when he woke up, the road ahead remained unclear.
Would he walk again without assistance? Would he be able to run?
Glenn’s recovery was neither simple nor swift. It was humbling, uncertain and often discouraging. After a few years of struggling, Glenn learned about the International Center for Spinal Cord Injury at Kennedy Krieger Institute.
At his first appointment at the center, he felt overwhelmed—not by fear, but by awe. The advanced equipment. Collaborative care. The staff’s focus and compassion. Surrounded by patients facing profound challenges, Glenn quietly wondered whether he even belonged there.
“I don’t think I deserve to be here,” he told his care team.
Their response was immediate and unwavering: “You absolutely do.”
Because of donor generosity, Glenn received highly specialized, individualized rehabilitation—care that doesn’t rush healing but honors how complex recovery truly is. His physical therapist, Alison Staples , began not by listing limitations but by asking a powerful question: “What do you want to be able to do again?”
“I want to jog,” he said.
Believing in him 100%, and in the power of Kennedy Krieger’s innovative therapies, Allison devised an individualized rehabilitation program for Glenn that would get him back up and running.
Therapy began slowly, with strengthening, balance work, retraining muscles and rebuilding confidence. Then came the underwater treadmill, where gravity loosened its grip and Glenn felt safe enough to trust his body again. Week by week, step by step, Glenn got a little more spring in his step.
One day in 2024, Glenn jogged outside for the first time in two years. It was just half a lap around a pond near Kennedy Krieger’s outpatient location in Fulton, Maryland. When he stopped, tears came—not because of the distance, but because he hadn’t believed moments like that were still possible.
That moment existed in large part because of all the work Glenn had put in at Kennedy Krieger. But it wasn’t just that. Kennedy Krieger wouldn’t exist without its donors, who give, year after year, unwaveringly and wholeheartedly. Without their support, Glenn might never have run again.
Glenn kept going.
Eventually, he ran more than a mile. Then Alison encouraged him to join Kennedy Krieger’s ROAR for Kids 5K race. Glenn was terrified, but he showed up. Halfway through, pain forced him to walk. At the final uphill stretch, with rain falling and his legs burning, Glenn turned to his daughter and friend and said, “I’m running it.”
At the finish line, Alison was waiting. As the rain fell and the other racers disbursed to dry off and get a snack, Alison and Glenn just stood there, giving each other a big hug.
Kennedy Krieger didn’t give me my old life back. They helped me build a hopeful new one.” – Glenn
Today, Glenn’s goals look different. As he learned at Kennedy Krieger, recovery isn’t about returning to who you were, but about discovering what’s possible now.
For Glenn, success means working alongside his wife again on their land—hauling, lifting and planting—after nearly two years of recovery and rehabilitation. It means running his engineering company and traveling for work with confidence. It means moving through the world without fear.
“Kennedy Krieger didn’t give me my old life back,” Glenn says. “They helped me build a hopeful new one.”
The International Center for Spinal Cord Injury's motto is “Hope Through Motion.” At the center, rehabilitation isn’t about just physical movement, but also mental confidence and learning to trust your body again.
Today, Glenn is back on his feet, not because the journey was easy, but because he didn’t walk it alone. In addition to providing innovative therapies and technologies, Kennedy Krieger offered hope that progress was still possible, that goals could evolve, and that life could be rebuilt, one step at a time.
Glenn may not have regained the life he once knew, but he gained something just as powerful: the confidence to move forward again.
