BURST
After a “turn for the worse” late last week, Tumbler Ridge mass shooting survivor Maya Gebala was showing signs of improvement early this week, even intently watching some favourite shows from her hospital bed, her parents shared.
Both Maya’s father, David Gebala, and mother, Cia Edmonds, posted separate updates about the resilient 12-year-old and her recovery late Tuesday, highlighting increased mobility and signs that, despite complications, “she continues to give it all she’s got.”
“Today Maya is watching ‘The Thundermans’, and it’s been so special to see her enjoying her shows again, a beautiful sense of familiarity and comfort for her,” Gebala wrote alongside a video of her watching the Nickelodeon superhero sitcom.
Two days prior, Edmonds had posted a video of Maya watching Henry Danger, another teen superhero show, which is a “ritual at bedtime for her.”
“It’s nice to see a part of her coming through in such a way,” Edmonds wrote.
Maya suffered significant brain damage when Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, shot her, as she tried to protect Tumbler Ridge Secondary School classmates on Feb. 10. She has been recovering from gunshot wounds to the head and neck at the B.C. Children’s Hospital intensive care unit in Vancouver since.
In his update, Gebala said the latest CT scans are the clearest yet and Maya is moving the left side of her body and has used the foot of the bed to push herself up.
There’s still a long road ahead, he said, but it’s a sign that “she keeps pushing and showing us she’s there.”
“We’ve seen her move her right arm and leg ever so slightly on a couple of occasions, and now her left eye is reacting to light,” he wrote. “It might seem little, but it’s a lot for her! And huge for all of us.”
Movement on the right is significant, Edmonds said, because doctors have said the brain damage was similar to a stroke and could result in Maya never having use of that side.
At certain times, Edmonds said Maya will be placed in a chair “to help with pressure and blood flow.” During one of those sessions on Monday, as people conversed around her, “in true Maya fashion,” she hurled her right arm off the armrest to let it hang by her side.
“Maya’s defiance, her way of saying ‘watch me,’” Edmonds wrote. “She shows us she will not give up, so we can’t either.”
The positive news follows a more worrisome update by Edmonds last Friday, in which she wondered when her daughter’s progress would plateau.
“At some point, the reality of our situation started to settle. My baby has a direct bullet hole in her brain… we’ve defeated odds, but how far will we go,” she wrote, adding that “Maya’s health took a turn for the worse” over 48 hours with pneumonia, meningitis, two brain surgeries and a cerebral fluid leak.
In her latest post, however, Edmonds said Maya “continues to give it all she’s got” in spite of the setbacks.
She also shared stories about Maya’s character and qualities, like when she was a “defiant and stubborn” baby who refused to sleep in her crib or the toddler who refused to wear pants, even if it meant missing a trip to the park.
“The child that dreamt of hockey since she was four, and had never skated in her life. She had her heart set on stilt walking for years… so she did it. She decided to teach herself guitar, three months later she sang on stage,” Edmonds shared late Tuesday night.
“Relentless ambition. ‘I can’t’ was never a thought.”
But Edmonds also celebrated her daughter’s gentle spirit.
During a camping trip at nearby Lac La Hache last Summer, she said Maya would wake every morning at 7 a.m. to catch a fish and bring it to the base of a nearby tree where an eagle had made its nest.
“The last day she went, the previous day’s fish was still there. That consumed her with sadness that the fish was ‘wasted.’ Her intense empathy decided the loss wasn’t worth the potential gain,” Edmonds wrote.
“Her big heart, her love for life, and her unwavering determination… and then this.”
Edmonds also said that she’s still coming to terms with the “unimaginable” incident at the school where kids should be doing kid things.
“We knew the family, we knew the suspect for years,” she wrote.
“This isn’t meant to happen. This should never ever happen. Why????”
As of Wednesday morning, the GoFundMe to support Maya and her family has raised more than $485,000 on the strength of more than 7,300 donations.
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