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Re: Heather's death -- A bit of background...

Posted By: Michael Frind
Date: Monday, 8 March 2010, at 11:33 p.m.

In Response To: Heather's death (Maura Kain/for Heather Kain)

Dear Everyone,

Heather Mary Kain, a California resident who passed away at age 26, was an active participant on the Kneeboard for a number of years. She was also my girlfriend.

For many years, Heather was active in soccer and gymnastics, and she was noted for her strength and ability in both of these very demanding sports. However, her knees began to give her problems in the form of patellar dislocations. She also began to have ankle and shoulder problems. Over the past eight years, she underwent over 30 surgeries, most of which were on her knees.

Having known Heather for nearly a decade, I must admit that her tremendous courage in dealing with her orthopedic issues leaves me two inches tall. She put up with a lot of protracted pain, and never complained. She did her physiotherapy religiously, and worked diligently on regaining her muscle strength. Her patellar problems appear to have a genetic basis (shallow kneecaps), albeit no one knows why she had extensive problems healing from some of the surgeries (thus explaining why she needed more and more surgeries).

Heather's passing from two 20-minute seizures (and also the sequelae of these seizures) came unexpectedly. She was in the process of recovering nicely from her most-recent knee surgery, and her knees were healing well. The seizure aspect may have been related to a history of serious concussions, including one incident which occurred while she was running at full speed down a soccer field. She tripped on a divot in the turf and smashed headfirst into the goalpost. Two other notable historical events included a childhood head injury due to a windblown garage door as well as a cerebral impact sustained during a motor-vehicle incident.

Heather lived life to the fullest, and after giving up soccer and gymnastics (due to knee issues), she pursued horseback riding, swimming, canoeing, and other active sports with the same vigour. As a student at Harbour and El Camino Colleges, and with plans to attend Chapman University for graduate studies, she also worked diligently towards her career goal of becoming a physical therapist. With her unique combination of deep compassion, patience, and thoughtfulness, as well as her warm sense of humour and her genuinely caring nature, combined with her strong knowledge of sports injuries and treatments, and augmented by her own extensive personal experience as orthopedic patient, she would have made a truly wonderful physical therapist.

Yours truly,
Michael Frind.
Knee Library http://factotem.org/library

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