Like many other high school students, Dontae had no history of physiological issues, and no reason to think anything would change. Then, he experienced a severe attack of transverse myelitis during routine football conditioning that left him without the use of his legs.

“My body attacked itself for no reason,” he says. “They said, ‘There’s nothing in your legs, there’s no disease, there’s no virus.”

During his stay at RIC Chicago, he started working with Sue Mukherjee, MD. “I can tell that she really wants to help,” says Dontae. “Thank you to my physiatrist for seeing me as more than my paraplegia.”