GROVE CITY - Just days after becoming paralyzed in an accident, doctors told Annie Wilner-Miller that her condition was permanent and she would never again breathe on her own. She quickly began to prove experts wrong, however, when she started to breathe without a ventilator just days later.
The Grove City woman indeed has faced a number of challenges - and miracles - since a fall down the stairs Jan. 4. The accident fractured her C3 vertebrae and spinal cord, which were already injured and weakened, as Wilner-Miller had been an iron worker for several years.
Willner-Miller’s condition keeps improving as she continues to battle her injuries at Courage Kenney, an extension of Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. She can now talk and move some of her fingers.
Her sisters, Joan Solem and Sue Goldschmidt, said their first miracle was Wilner-Miller’s decision to keep fighting and not give up.
“We just keep believing in the miracles. They keep happening one after another. She wants to live. That’s our first miracle,” Solem said.
A quote from a past Tribune news article has become a motto for Wilner-Miller and her family during the recent difficult times.
A graduate of ACGC, Wilner-Miller and her sisters excelled in athletics and were featured in Tribune articles when they played basketball in high school.
“Where there’s a Wilner, there’s a way,” one of the articles states.
Her family evens plans to sell T-shirts with the phrase to help pay for medical expenses.
Family and friends are giving back in their own ways to the woman who has always been a caretaker to all, volunteering for her community and the schools.
“She is the community member that when a family is down on their luck or worse, she plans the meals, the benefits and anything else that is needed,” Goldschmidt said.
Her family’s hope is to bring Wilner-Miller home before her birthday in May to the farmhouse she shares with her husband, Paul Miller, in rural Grove City.
“(The doctors) said the sky is the limit. They don’t know what is going to happen. They are almost dumbfounded by fact that she has improved this early. None of us are accepting that she will be in a wheelchair,” Solem said.
How to help
In order to raise funds to bring her home and pay medical bills, her family has organized a bank account for Wilner-Miller and a fundraising webpage.
Those interested in donating to the cause can visit
www.gofundme.com/k4mvaw
. Donations can also be mailed to Annie’s Fight, Home State Bank, P.O. Box 217 Cosmos, MN 56228.
Annie Wilner-Miller’s family has also organized a caringbridge.com page, where updates of Wilner-Miller’s progress are posted. The page has already received more than 39,000 visits and can be viewed at
www.caringbridge.org/visit/anniewilner-miller
.
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