Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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" Both of Gillian's legs were severely injured, and one might not have been able to be saved." DR. ERIC G. HALVORSON PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE RENY FAMILY (GILLIAN); MARATHON FOTO (DANIELLE) RIGHT: Gillian Reny recovering at Brigham and Women's Hospital. BELOW: Her sister, Danielle, ran in the marathon last year. injured, and one might not be able to be saved." Audrey and Steven described their daughter to him. "They told me she was a dancer, that she was supposed to go to the University of Pennsylvania as a freshman in the fall, that she had a bright future ahead of her." Dr. Halvorson got right to it. The vascular system, tissues, bones, and nerves all had to be assessed—and fast. Along with Dr. Halvorson, a team of other doctors was assigned to Gillian in a multidis- ciplinary approach. Gillian's legs had been sliced by a six-inch piece of the wall of the pressure-cooker bomb. It had shredded through her right leg and embedded into her left calf. After 24 hours and two surgeries, it was time for Dr. Halvorson to report to Audrey and Steven. Their daughter's legs would be saved. "It was a miracle that all the major nerves were intact," Dr. Halvorson says. Miracles are funny things. Timing, luck, science, even love, it could be argued, are all part of the myste- rious potion. Dr. Halvorson isn't one to utter the word lightly, nor is he one to downplay the life-and-death, limb-or-no-limb outcomes that doctors come to bear. A graduate of the medical school at Duke University School of Medicine, he had seen worse than the Boston Marathon bombings. Back in 2003, he was working as the chief trauma resident at Rhode Island Hospital on the night of the fire at the Station nightclub. One hun- dred people perished in the blaze, and more than 200 were injured. "As far as casualties go, that was a much bigger event," he says. "It left a mark and informed me about what types of systems and approaches work best in times of trauma." When he came to Brigham and Women's Hospital in 2013, he recognized a thoughtful staff, a multidisciplinary system, and a depth of expertise that ranked the hospital as one of the best, not just on the Northeast corridor but in the world. Did that help save Gillian's legs? "There's no ques- tion," Dr. Halvorson says. But there was a long journey ahead for Gillian and her family. One of their toughest challenges was adapting from being a fiercely private clan to being thrust into the spotlight in an international news story. "We were in the midst of something that was a public phenomenon," Audrey says. "We literally heard from every person that we've ever known in our entire life." And peo- ple they had never met. "We had so many requests for interviews," she says. The family declined all of them. "That wasn't the priority for us at all," Steven says. "It was about Gillian and the doctors, and our immediate family." "[Audrey and Steven] were there around the clock," Dr. Halvorson says. "They had to be dragged away just to be evaluated—I mean, Steven rup- tured both of his eardrums in the attack, and Audrey had multiple shrapnel injuries." As a doctor trained to manage trauma, Halvorson was struck by how the family handled what clearly was the worst event of their lives. "I could tell when I first met them that they were successful, smart, and pri- vate," he says. "This sort of trauma could break them. It could make anybody in any circumstance fall apart." continued from page 54 continued on page 58 FIRST STEPS One, two, three, plié. Hold the barre. Two, two, three, relevé. Three, two, three, plié. It was tedious—God, so tedious to Gillian, but making it at the Boston Ballet school had meant being disciplined, being tough. For three weeks at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center, as Gillian learned to put weight on her legs, practiced bending her knees—fighting each time not to faint from the pain—she remembered her 7-year-old self training at the bal- let barre. She remembered how she ignored her feet throbbing inside her pink satin toe shoes. It's in your head, she would repeat to herself. Every dancer feels this, but the excellent ones manage it. Audrey and Steven Reny knew their daughter was strong, but they never could have predicted the kind of resilience required of her now. They had cheered in the audience when Gillian twirled onstage for seven years in the Boston Ballet's Nutcracker. Now they held their breath each time she grasped the hospital's metal bars to take a step. "It was a fine line between pushing yourself and pushing yourself too much," Gillian says of her recov- ery. "I was so focused on wanting to get out of the hospital as soon as I could. I was pushing myself to make the most out of it." In between therapy sessions, as Gillian was healing, the Renys started to talk about giving back to the doctors and staff who had saved their daughter. In February, the Reny family launched the Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Fund at Brigham and Women's Hospital, raising money for cutting-edge research and innovation for limb salvage, reconstruction, and regeneration. 56 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY