By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

AUBURN – When Monica Quimby was paralyzed in a skiing accident in January, doctors told her she would never walk again.

This week she stood, walked and kicked a beach ball.

It took leg braces and a walker, but Quimby was thrilled to be on her feet again.

“It feels awesome! I love standing up,” she said. “I have a new-found appreciation for standing up.”

Quimby, 20, was a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire when she fell at Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry while swerving to avoid a snowboarder.

She spent the next five months in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the thighs down.

During a physical therapy session at HealthSouth in Auburn Thursday, the beaming Quimby had a message for the doctors who told her she wouldn’t walk again.

“I’d say, Look at me now!'”

Physical therapist Kristine St. Pierre, who has been working with Quimby for six weeks, said she was impressed by Quimby’s determination, attitude and progress.

“She’s worked hard,” St. Pierre said. “She’s made huge gains. Her upper body strength has improved, also her lower body strength and muscle control. We’re getting muscle twitches, a little bit of muscle movement which we didn’t before in her upper thighs, her legs and toes.”

That’s good news because with a spinal cord injury muscle recovery takes place in the first 18 months, Quimby said.

Since returning home to Turner in April after months at an Atlanta rehabilitation center, Quimby has made adjustments to help resume normalcy without the use of her legs. She’s figured out a quick way to put on her jeans. She rides in a normal car and folds in and out of her wheelchair. She’s planning to resume driving at the end of July.

In addition to physical therapy, she works out at home, undergoes acupuncture to help the pain in her hips where she crashed while skiing. She’s getting holistic counseling to help maintain her positive attitude. “We’ve got quite a team,” said her mother, Nadia Quimby.

Quimby was upbeat about her progress, but her smile disappeared when she talked about how people treat her because she’s in a wheelchair.

“They talk to my mom instead of talking to me. It’s like they think I’m retarded or something because of the wheelchair,” she said. “It happens all the time.”

For example, a clerk at a movie theater, bending down and speaking very slowly, asked Quimby whether she liked the movie.

“I thought, Are you kidding me?’ That’s the hardest thing,” Quimby said. “It hurts.”

She has spoken up a couple of times, but it gets old, she said. “It’s a day-to-day battle.”

While she’s in her wheelchair she’ll do her part to change attitudes, Quimby said.

The 2004 Leavitt Area High School graduate will return to UNH in August to study molecular, cellular and development biology. Her focus will be stem cell research.

In September, she’ll return home for another fundraiser, a walk-a-thon starting at Leavitt Area High School.

Recently she had a dream. “I was walking down the street in my braces. All the neighbors came out and walked with me. I walked a half of a mile.”

After she told her counselor about the dream, they decided to hold a Dream Walk-a-Thon. It will be held on Sept. 23.

Wearing her braces, Monica will lead the walk.