Long road to recovery
JDHS volleyball player back on court after serious injury
For months, Megan Treston's life was measured not in minutes, hours or days, but in degrees.
Back
That is degrees of movement, achieved in minuscule amounts each day as she lay on the family pool table for therapy sessions, her parents bending her shattered right elbow to regain as much motion as possible.
In April 2003, five months after helping Juneau-Douglas High School win a state volleyball title as a sophomore, Treston was injured in a snowmobile accident and faced the possibility of never being able to use her right hand again.
But through months of painful and painfully slow rehabilitation, Treston persevered and worked her way back into her two athletic passions - playing volleyball for JDHS, and jumping rope for the Juneau Jumpers.
"I never doubted that I'd be able to do it," she said. "I always imagined playing volleyball and jumping rope. I never thought about not being able to bend my arm."
Treston will be on the volleyball court this weekend as the Crimson Bears host the annual Juneau Invitational Volleyball Extravaganza, featuring eight other squads from Southeast and beyond. It will be another step in her remarkable recovery.
Serious injury
In November 2002, Treston celebrated Juneau's first-ever state volleyball title as the youngest member of that season's team.
Treston, daughter of Steve and Nila Treston and younger sister of former JDHS athlete Grady Treston, was primarily a defensive blocker. But she started to contribute on offense through the season, helped in part by a volleyball her dad suspended in a bag from the ceiling of the family's garage. Megan Treston would spend time hitting it after practice to hone her skills.
"We were looking forward to her growing and developing the next year," Juneau co-coach Sandi Wagner said.
Five months later, Treston was medevaced to Anchorage from Nome after the snowmobiling accident, near that northwestern Alaska town.
Two of Treston's teeth were broken, while a third was driven upwards and fractured her upper jaw. More seriously, her right elbow was fractured, leaving tiny fragments of bone around the joint. The fracture and dislocation of the elbow pinched her ulnar nerve - which controls many small muscles in the hand.
While a fortuitous turn of events made a medevac flight available much faster than usual, it was still 10 hours before Treston reached Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, where doctors relieved the pressure on the nerve.
The damage to her arm and hand was severe; the worst-case prognosis was grim.
"The doctors told my mom and dad that I might never be able to use my hand again, and my arm could be permanently straightened," Treston said.
Fortunately, the nerve damage was not permanent. The ordeal left Treston's hand weak, but functional. After surgeries to stabilize her arm and reconstruct her elbow, Treston returned to Juneau to begin months of therapy. In Juneau, Dr. Gary Moeller performed dental work to successfully restore Treston's smile, and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jon Reiswig helped track her recovery.
Road to recovery
In May 2003, Treston started sessions with physical therapist and athletic trainer Stephanie Yates at Action Rehab several times a week. That was supplemented by two hours of daily therapy at home with her parents, including soaking the elbow in hot water to stimulate blood flow, rubbing the arm to remedy swelling and bending the arm to improve flexibility. That was often done on the pool table, since its height made it ideal for treatment.
The time and energy Treston had to devote to therapy limited how much time she could spend in school. With the help of her teachers and counselors, she studied through summer 2003 to catch up.
Regaining range of motion in Treston's right elbow was a key focus of therapy. An elbow can bend from zero to 150 degrees; Treston had a range of 20 to 70 degrees after the accident and slowly worked back up. Today, she can bend her elbow from about 15 to 110 degrees.
"For Megan, the way she gained it back, it took four to eight weeks to get two degrees (of movement)," her mother, Nila Treston, said. "To go from 70 degrees to what she has today, 110 - it took minute steps to get there."
Slowly, steadily, Megan Treston gained back pieces of her life before the accident. Being able to raise a fork from a plate to her mouth with her right hand was one such milestone.
"That was good - to bend my arm enough to be able to eat" right-handed, she said. "Brushing your hair, brushing your teeth - you don't think about it until you can't do it."
While working to regain use of her right arm, Treston also spent time learning to make do with her left. While she still writes right-handed, Treston now does many other daily chores - putting on makeup, putting in contact lenses - with her left hand.
Some activities go both ways, like eating. While Treston prefers to use her right hand to hold a fork, it can be a bit awkward since that elbow still lacks a full range of motion. She joked that she'll use her right hand if she's eating in an informal situation, but she'll roll out the left hand in a fancy restaurant.
As she reached those successes, Treston was also working toward returning to her athletic pursuits.
Back on the court
As soon as Treston was able, she and Yates, her physical therapist, started exercises aimed at a return to sports. One example was a kind of push-up - springing off a hard surface with her hands and arms - which correlated to jump rope routines and, in a way, to volleyball hits.
At first, Yates had Treston push off walls, as her elbow was still very compromised. Gradually, as her elbow improved, Treston moved to a table, then to ever-lowering steps on a staircase, and finally to the floor. Treston also did exercises to restore the strength in her right arm and hand.
Yates credited much of Treston's success to her dedication, and strong family support.
Therapy "was their focus, and I knew from the start that she'd do well because of that," Yates said.
For months, while her bone healed, Treston was barred from any kind of open gym situation where an errant ball could wreak havoc on her arm. During the volleyball season in fall 2003, she watched matches from the bleachers.
"It was really hard to come to the games and watch, and not be out there playing," she said.
On her own, Treston started working with volleyballs - doing bumps, hitting the ball in the garage - by October 2003. After bone-graft surgery last January, which left her with 10 screws and a four-inch metal plate in her elbow, Treston won the OK to return to the gym in April. Her coaches were a bit nervous.
"When she came to open gym the first time, and she hit the floor - my heart stopped. It took me a while to work through that," said Wagner, who, along with fellow coaches Dale Bontrager and Pat Gorman, helped Treston get back into the game.
"Her arm does not straighten all the way, so that makes parts of the game very difficult. But she's learning to adjust."
Treston spent time with Bontrager learning how to set her feet and arms to serve left-handed, and worked on spiking from the left. She can attack the ball with either hand and makes meaningful contributions on the floor, though it's sometimes a challenge.
"My brain still thinks right," she said. "It messes me up, but my coaches have helped me. ...
"I'm rusty. I can still tell I haven't played in a long time. But it's great to be back on the team."
Treston, who also returned to competition with the Juneau Jumpers over the summer, wears a gel-filled pad on her elbow to cushion the pins used to reconstruct the bone; they can cause pain if bumped. Other than that, an unknowing spectator would be hard-pressed to separate her from any other Juneau varsity player.
When she played her first home match since the accident, against Ketchikan earlier this month, Treston said she "felt like I was supposed to be there."
Those who saw Treston through months of rehabilitation couldn't agree more.
"I admire Megan a lot," Nila Treston said. "She's had to work really hard. Her junior year, every minute from when she got up to when she went to bed, she either did her therapy or did her homework. ... She's moved forward with her life."
"Megan has an indomitable spirit," Gorman said. "She's a remarkable young lady."
• Andrew Krueger can be reached at andrew.krueger@juneauempire.com.