Ride For Life: Healing waters

Three times a week, for an hour at a time, Joan Lewis-Scott escapes the lingering effects of two back surgeries as well as the trauma of Lou Gehrig's disease by floating in a pool of warm water where everything seems possible.

Lewis-Scott normally must use a wheelchair, but one recent day Breanna Tennessen, pool manager of the Community Center in Severna Park, saw Lewis-Scott walk through the water at the therapy pool.

That night, Tennessen said, "I went home ... and I cried."

Such scenes are playing out at this dedicated therapy pool, the only publicly accessible facility of its kind in Anne Arundel County. Every week, hundreds of people, young and old, step into the 90-degree water to soothe aches, rekindle movement and inspire hope.

"I've not found another place like this ... and believe me, I've looked," said Carol Balch, 60, of Annapolis, who for four months has come twice a week for therapy.

Planners of a $5 million redevelopment of the former YMCA swim facility took a leap when they incorporated a second pool, for warm-water therapy, into their vision at least five years ago.

The $2.3 million swim center, which opened in May, houses the new 30-foot-by-40-foot therapy pool along with the original six-lane, 25-yard swimming pool.

The second phase will consist of adding an adjoining gym that would also house four meeting rooms, offices, a weight room, and a dance and aerobics studio. But work has been delayed until at least late summer as organizers seek to raise $3.5 million in contributions. So far, organizers have collected slightly more than $2.7 million.

Before last year, two lanes of the long-standing swimming pool served as the splashdown point for water therapy, but the cooler, 84-degree water would cause the muscles of recovering patients to tense. They also had to contend with the boisterous sounds and the choppy waters associated with a lap pool.

Since the therapy pool's opening, a growing number of physical therapy patients have sought individualized rehabilitation in its warm water. A wall separating the two pools keeps the therapy from being interrupted.

"I wish we had a bigger lot to put a bigger therapy pool in," said Patt Haun, executive director of the community center.

Hank Vineyard, 41, of Arnold attended his first physical therapy session at the community center last week, after undergoing his second back-fusion surgery in October for a degenerative disc disease. Vineyard is trying to build muscle support around his midsection.

He previously performed out-of-water physical therapy in Annapolis, but at the pool, he said, "I used some muscles today that I haven't used in two or three years."

"I'm feeling more optimistic," he said. "If it's not a faster recovery, it will be a more complete recovery."

It's that promise of recovery that motivated Vineyard to look high and low across the region for a dedicated therapy pool. He said he found one in Towson, but then his wife, who drives by the community center on the way to her teaching job at Severna Park High, discovered this pool - a 10-minute drive from their home.

For the past nine months, Lewis-Scott has commuted from Davidsonville to the community center for her treatment. She spent the previous three months at another local pool center, but, she said, the cooler water slowed her muscle response. The first pool "wasn't geared for physical therapy," she said.

But in the community center's therapy pool, with depths of 3 to 8 feet, patients have room to maneuver and space to grow.

As Lewis-Scott lay still atop the water - her physical therapist, Mike Patterson, keeping her afloat - she smiled.

It's the little things she can do in the pool that have emboldened her, such as sitting, standing, walking and pivoting. To move in those ways at home would enable her to get from her bed or the bathroom without being mechanically lifted. She is confident she can progress in the face of her diagnosis with Lou Gehrig's disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which causes a breakdown in voluntary motor functions.

"With leg braces, I can actually walk back and forth [in the water]," Lewis-Scott said. "It's not great, but I can do it."

Beyond the personalized treatment offered there, the pool is open for group arthritis and physical therapy classes for knees, other joints and back. Water's buoyancy counteracts the effect of gravity, eliminating the pain associated with normal movement. The tropic-like water also is used by younger children learning to swim.

"For younger kids, you are cold to begin with, and when you put them into cold water they tense up," said Maureen Kogut, program manager for the community center pools. "Here, they are more receptive to learning."

Balch can't wait to take a dip. She goes to therapy to relieve the pain of a back fusion surgery and fibromyalgia, a condition that causes chronic pain, especially in the head and neck areas.

She once did her therapy work at a shallower pool in Bowie. The 8-foot depth in Severna Park allows her to "do my exercise without putting stress on my neck."

She goes twice a week for treatment, but she would like to go more frequently. Her surgeon told her that she's already ahead of her recovery schedule. Now it's the temporary respites from fibromyalgia's pain that bring her back to the pool.

"I tend to have bouts of depression because of the chronic pain," Balch said. Going to the pool "makes me feel better because it's something I look forward to."