By Karen Blackledge
MOORESBURG -- Melissa Wilson admits she would have given up a long time ago if it weren't for her three children.
"I can't stop. If I didn't have the kids and the support I have, I would not have kept as motivated. The kids mean the world to me, and I want the best for them. If they ever reach a hard point in their life like I have, I want them to never give up," she said, sobbing, and adding, "I'm like waterworks."
Wilson, 26, has been paralyzed from the waist down since an accident nearly two years ago.
Driving a GMC Envoy she had acquired just days before, the former licensed practical nurse remembers the right front tire pulling as the vehicle started to leave the road. She pulled the wheel to the left, causing it to roll. The vehicle flipped several times before stopping. Wilson, having taken off her seat belt earlier to reach around to get one of her kids something, was thrown out. She landed in the middle of Route 642, near Mooresburg.
Wilson's children also were hurt. Sydney, 7, suffered a concussion and required 42 stitches on her face. Logan, 4, was bruised, and Gabriella, 2, had a fractured right femur. Logan was released the day of the accident, and his sisters stayed a couple of days.
Wilson is trying to find a home for herself and her children. They need a one-story with at least three bedrooms.
"I want to be able to tuck my kids in at night," said Wilson, who takes care of her kids, including cooking for them. She gets help with hygiene and in reaching high places from Community Resources for Independence workers.
Montour County officials have been trying to help. Transit director Amanda Boyer "has gone above and beyond for me," said Wilson, who uses the transit service to go to appointments and to take Logan to Head Start. Sydney is in first grade.
Wilson, who volunteers at her son's school and anywhere she can, has been looking for an at-home job.
The family is staying with Wilson's 86-year-old father, Arthur Wilson, in Liberty Township.
"It's a small house, and it's rough on him," she said. "He likes it quiet, and it's certainly not here."
Wilson tried Beaver Place and Allied Kear Apartments, but the first-floor places have only two bedrooms.
At a recent Montour County commissioners' meeting, Chairman Trevor Finn announced Wilson is trying to find housing after exhausting avenues through agencies in both Montour and Columbia counties. She hopes to find a home in Montour County because that's where she has lived most of her life and her family lives here.
"She needs a hand, and she isn't looking for a handout," said Finn of Wilson, who has worked since she was 12 and put herself through LPN school. "She is looking for a place where she can get in and out of and her kids will be safe."
She contacted Habitat for Humanity but was told she would have to wait a year for a home.
"I have the 20-page application for Extreme Home Makeover to fill out. They require so much," she said, but added, "I'm willing to do anything at this point."
While there is a piece of land in Montour County that was given to her, she said the cost to excavate, do a sewer test, drill a well and build a modular ranch home would be about $130,000.
Wilson, who went from caring for people in wheelchairs at Alley Medical Center in Berwick to operating a motorized wheelchair, wants eventually to go back to school and earn a psychology degree. "I want to go back to work, and I want to help in the community any way I can," she said.
Wilson hopes to get a specially equipped van to drive. A fundraiser brought in $1,700 for one, but it could cost up to $30,000. In order for the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation to pay for the van, it has to be less than five years old and have less than 50,000 miles on it.
Before the accident on July 25, 2007, Wilson was going through a divorce and trying to save money for a home, so she and her kids were living with her dad.
After seven weeks at Geisinger Medical Center, Wilson was transferred to Kramm's Nursing Home in Milton, where she learned to bathe herself in bed, dress herself and do other daily activities. After eight weeks there, her right shoulder had healed enough for her to undergo rehabilitation. The nearest facility that works with spinal-cord-injury patients was HealthSouth in State College. At HealthSouth, she learned how to handle situations she would encounter at home.
Wilson came home the day before Thanksgiving in 2007.
