by Linda May Grobman, MSW, ACSW, LSW
Karen Roy
Karen Roy, Ms. Wheelchair America 2019
"I have always loved medical social work and mental health,” says Karen Fernbaugh Roy. A licensed clinical social worker with her MSW from Louisiana State University (LSU), the Baton Rouge resident spent the first 20 years of her career as a medical social worker, mostly working in rehabilitation hospitals, where she helped people with new illnesses or injuries adjust and be discharged back to their home environments. This is something Karen knows about firsthand.
In 1987, when she was a 19-year-old sophomore at LSU, Karen and her musician boyfriend Mike went out after an LSU football game. Mike played some guitar at a club, and when they left, she saw that her car had been broken into. Two armed men appeared, and they shot at Mike and missed. Karen was shot in the back. The men took her purse with $2 inside.
“I was taken to the local trauma center with a punctured lung and bleeding to death,” she recalls. “I received eight units of blood that night and almost didn’t make it. A few days later, after I was stable, the doctor told me that I would never walk again.”
Fast forward to 2018. Karen was named Ms. Wheelchair Louisiana, which made her eligible to compete for the national title. From July 28-August 4, 2018, Karen competed with women from 25 other states at the national Ms. Wheelchair America pageant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, all of whom she describes as “articulate and passionate about their particular platforms.” She won the national title, which she will hold until summer 2019.
“Ms. Wheelchair America is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide an opportunity of achievement for women who happen to be wheelchair users to successfully educate and advocate for the over 54 million Americans living with disabilities,” she says. “It is not a beauty pageant. Instead, it is based on advocacy, achievement, communication, and presentation.”
Each state and national Ms. Wheelchair has her own platform related to advocacy or education about disabilities. Karen’s platform is “Stand for Life.” She developed this platform when she “realized that...technology is terribly underutilized by people with disabilities.”
“Stand for Life” may sound implausible for a wheelchair user, but soon after her spinal cord injury (SCI), Karen learned about technology that would help her to stand up, which helps in maintaining bone density, increasing circulation, and preventing wounds. “I was introduced to devices that I could stand with and a functional electrical stimulation (FES) bike,” she says. She has been using this technology for 31 years and “I have never had a wound, fracture, or contracture in 31 years of a spinal cord injury.” She has been “preaching this to every doctor, therapist, and patient with a spinal cord injury that I have come in contact with over the years.” She wants insurance companies to be educated about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be saved if these devices were provided early in SCI treatment.
“Spreading this message is the main reason I wanted to become Ms. Wheelchair Louisiana,” Karen says. And now that she is Ms. Wheelchair America, she has an even wider opportunity to travel and speak to groups of medical professionals, people with disabilities, and media outlets to explain the importance of standing and other exercise.
Karen currently works as a medical supply account manager for Numotion, a large provider of custom wheelchairs and other medical supplies. She says, “When I meet with customers, they are often trying to adjust to a new disability, and I am always using my social work skills when listening to them and providing resources…. I always want to offer any support I can give them through their difficult transition to their new life and information on how to take care of themselves.”
Karen’s life is a full and busy one. She had three children after sustaining her injury. Caroline (age 25), Austin (age 21), and Joseph (age 18) are all in college. Two and a half years ago, she lost her husband of more than 20 years to a Fentanyl overdose. She is dating Roy Harris, a man she has known since high school. “He has been extremely supportive of my ventures as Ms. Wheelchair Louisiana and now Ms. Wheelchair America. He has helped with fundraising, scheduling events, and traveling with me at times,” she says.
Karen loves interacting with people, one of the reasons she became a social worker. “I was born a helper and a complete people person,” she says. “I think I specialized in medical social work because of my injury. My inpatient physical rehabilitation experience was the beginning of my new life with a disability. I wanted to use my experience to help others through that process.”
“I have loved helping people who find themselves at a crossroads in their life after an injury or illness,” she continues. “It is an honor be a part of their physical and mental healing process. I like to see the immediate results of giving people the resources they need to move forward with their lives. It boils down to finding a way to give people with a new disability hope for the future.”
In her first few months in the role of Ms. Wheelchair America, she has already traveled to 11 states and 15 cities to speak about her “Stand for Life” platform. “I wake up every day feeling so honored and thankful that I was chosen to be Ms. Wheelchair America,” she says.
It’s the social worker/advocate in her that wants the technology that has helped her so much to help others, as well. “I will spend the year ‘standing up’ for the rights of the disabled to have access to the devices they need and deserve,” she says.
Linda May Grobman, MSW, ACSW, LSW, is the founder, publisher, and editor of The New Social Worker magazine and editor of the Days in the Lives of Social Workers book series.