Looking back, Silva says, “I met a lot of people who’ve had
accidents of all kinds, amazing people. As a person who’s not injured, you wouldn’t realize how many people have such hard lives. My outlook has changed after meeting so many people who have the hardest time just getting out of bed in the morning. Many are so optimistic and energetic, and have such struggles but just keep going. So the positive side of my injury is that I’ve met all these amazing people.” While she has regained the ability to walk, Silva’s vision
remains problematic. The bleeding in her brain put pressure on her optic nerve, resulting in third nerve palsy, also called oculomotor nerve palsy. The effect is that she can’t keep her right eye open and the eye tends to look off to the side creating double vision. Surgery will center her eye to help with the double vision, and doctors will move the eyelid up so that she can keep her eye open. “I can’t wait!” she says. “Nerves
can regenerate but it takes a long, long time. Obviously my body’s go- ing to adjust to it even if it doesn’t come back on its own, but the plan is to do surgery to fix the problem. I didn’t appreciate how much we use our vision for everything, and have had to adjust to not having the vision I used to have. Everything is harder now, but I’m doing it.” She adds with a smile, “Don’t hit your head, it’s not fun!” In rehab, Silva did occupational
and physical therapies. “I still do OT, much of it for the vision: reaction time, exercises that test your reac- tion time and things like that,” she says. “I did that a lot—like following an optic with my eyes, or dyna-vi- sion, a big board with lights and you hit the light as fast as they come on. Of course that wasn’t easy. I use the left eye most of the time; the third nerve palsy moves both eyes to the side. When I’m moving, I can’t see because my eyes don’t move independently. If there’s a hole or dent in the ground, I don’t see it because I can’t look up and down. In surgery they can move the eye to the middle so I don’t have double vision, and they’ll move the eyelid up so that I can open and close it normally—I can’t wait for that to happen!” Besides her eyes, Silva stayed busy early in her treatment,
When her physical therapy wrapped up Silva returned
to her longtime personal trainer, Linda Brown. “She came to therapy with me one day to see what they did,” explains Silva. “I do a lot of balancing stuff with her now, like using a balanc- ing board, and we also do weights and squats and things like that. My entire left side was paralyzed; I feel pretty normal now but working out with Linda, I really notice my left side is weaker. I don’t notice it when I’m riding, thankfully.” “It’s amazing how fast you lose fitness,” she continues. “In
Florida, I went to the gym at 4:00 a.m. every day and I was the fittest I’d ever been. Now I feel so tired, from the healing process and from my eyes, and I can’t work out like I used to. But I don’t think it would be ben- eficial to work out that much right now anyway. I’m up to riding seven horses a day and that is really help- ing my fitness. I have to accept the fact that it might take a little while.”
Recently back in the saddle, Silva and Benefactor RRS, owned by Melinda Walton, competed at the ESDCTA Dressage Show in Gladstone, NJ in July.
Back in the Saddle One of the hardest aspects of her rest and recuperation time was that Silva was not able to sit on a horse. She still spent as much time as she could in the barn, and watched her horses being ridden. As soon as she regained her speech, she sat ringside and offered her students advice. But getting back in the saddle was as much of an emotional milestone as it was a physical achievement. “I’m so happy that I’m riding again and that I’m able to ride again,” she says. “Because I don’t remember the accident, I don’t feel scared of riding, it’s just something I’ve done all my life. I wish it was as easy as it was before, but it will be
eventually and that’s what I have to look forward to. I may not be 100 percent of what I was but I’ll be very close.” Silva’s injury resulted in a midbrain bleed, which meant
doctors could not operate. “Usually they can put a hole in the skull and release the pressure, but they couldn’t do that,” she explains. “It was scary for a couple days because it didn’t stop bleeding at all. A lot of people don’t make it with that injury, so I was lucky. I’ve had numerous CAT scans since then and the blood is all resolved; it’s amazing that that happened.”
improving everything else. “I had to learn how to walk and I had to go to speech therapy for a while to get my talking going again. I was in a wheelchair to start with and I couldn’t walk at all because my balance was so bad. My balance isn’t perfect now, but I believe that’s to do with the vision too. I think my brain is still healing. My balance has improved prob- ably 200 percent, but it’s still improving.”
32 November/December 2014
By Silva’s Side When Silva was injured, her husband Boyd was getting ready to compete at the Red Hills three-day event in Tallahas- see, Florida. His horse Trading Aces, owned by the Trading Aces Syndicate, LLC, needed the run to qualify for the World Equestrian Games. Boyd needed to be by Silva’s side, but he
Amber Heintzberger
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