Her life was changed forever by a speeding car. From now on -- with her independence growing, her family close, and her business moving forward -- the changes will be of her own choosing.
You are you. Take a breath, and you are someone else.
Growing up in Dallas, Alison Schuback was the kind of young woman yearbooks were created to enshrine. At 23, she was beautiful, popular, working on her master's degree in family therapy, and envisioning a life spent helping others. Then, on October 17, 1997, a Chevy Suburban ran a red light and plowed into the side of her gray Mitsubishi Eclipse, which was waiting to make a left-hand turn at an intersection. As Schuback's car whipsawed into other vehicles, the fibers of her brain twisted and tore, wreaking havoc on the delicate network that keeps humans sentient and mobile.
"I remember at the hospital when I was coming out of the coma," says Schuback, leaning forward slightly as though concerned my recorder may not pick up her soft, halting words. "There was a pool on my floor, and I could smell the chlorine. I thought everything was underwater. And I worried, because I knew mammals couldn't breathe underwater. So what was I doing there?"
We are having coffee in the cheerful living room of a pale brick house just a hop-skip from the Galleria Dallas. The former dancer sits poker-straight in an electric wheelchair, occasionally raising an unsteady hand to emphasize a point or attract attention. But while her body moves little, her face is always on the go: brows arching, eyes widening, lips curling in a lopsided grin. When Schuback is still, the only evidence of injury is the outline of a battery pack implanted below her left shoulder. Wires thread through her neck to her brain to calm her tremors. At one point, she gingerly hikes up the legs of her pants to display the sores on her knees from crawling back and forth on her bedroom floor each day -- an exercise meant to help her relearn the use of her limbs.
Traumatic brain injury specialists and survivors often emphasize the suddenness with which lives can change. The impact of a car. A tumble from a bike. A dive gone wrong. Fate rolls the dice, and someone loses. Only for Schuback, victimhood was not a viable career option. "In life, there are probabilities and possibilities," she says. "Before my accident, it was probable that I would make a difference. Now it's only possible that I will make a difference. So I have to take every opportunity."
The child of entrepreneurial parents, Schuback equates opportunity with self-employment. As medical bills mounted, she wanted to make money, not raise it or have others raise it for her. So in 2002 she invented a transparent, washable bib for adults with disabilities and launched a company to sell it. The venture was inspirational as hell, for all the good it did her. Like many small companies, this one ran out of cash before it ran out of business cards. Schuback was forced to part with her single employee and consign remaining inventory to the basement.
Then, one morning last spring, Schuback's mother noticed an announcement in the paper. Everyday Edisons, a (oxymoron alert) PBS reality series that celebrates amateur inventors, was holding casting calls in town the next day. "She wanted to know if I thought that was interesting," says Schuback. "Well, yeah, I thought it was interesting."
So Schuback dragged her father -- just back from a business trip and exhausted -- to the casting call. Edisons's producers were gratifyingly wowed; they will feature the Invisibib next June. But that was just the start of this happy ending, because Schuback's audition brought her to the attention of a Fortune 500 executive uniquely positioned by his own family tragedy to appreciate both the invention's utility and its inventor's fortitude. And once more, in an instant, Schuback's life changed.
Soon, Schuback will be helping to lead a company of almost a hundred employees that will produce the tentatively named Invisibib. She hopes sales will pay for the years of surgeries and treatments still on her horizon. But the greater thrill, Schuback says, is the prospect of creating meaningful jobs for people who have injuries like her own. She will also consult on process innovations, applying her hard-won expertise to design a workplace that doesn't merely accommodate disabilities but is shaped around them.
"People think someone like me is doing well if they are only stuffing envelopes," says Schuback, her voice a low warble even when her words are defiant. "Well, I am not a person who is satisfied with that."
Like many people blindsided by fate, the Schubacks have mentally divided their lives into two eras: pre- and postcatastrophe. Joining Alison and me today -- trying not to fuss over her and succeeding somewhat -- are her mother, Donna Schuback, with whom she lives; her father, Michael Schuback, from whom Donna is divorced; and her sister, Michelle Schuback. As they eagerly describe a young Alison staging plays in the family living room and leading neighborhood children on make-believe safaris, the subject of their recollections sits quietly, as though detached from a past that has little to do with who she is today.
After the accident, Schuback remained in a coma for 29 days. Doctors urged the family to consider removing life support. "We weren't having any of it," says Michael, who praises and defends Alison with the fervor of a vice presidential candidate on the campaign trail. "We said we don't care what we get back. You just do your job and bring us back whatever you can."
Schuback woke gradually. ("It's not sudden, like on TV, where they just pop up and say, 'Where am I?' " says Donna.) She then spent three months recovering at the Baylor Institute for Rehabilitation. Her memory and ability to think were largely unimpaired, which is atypical of brain injury patients. But her ataxia -- a disorder of the part of the nervous system that coordinates movement -- was among the worst such cases her doctors had seen.
Schuback stood out in another way, her doctors say. "She was hopeful and sweet every minute that she was here," says Mary Carlile, director of Baylor's Traumatic Brain Injury program. "I think what carried Alison through is that she remained so positive."
