Path to Recovery

My whole campaign is predicated upon the fact that my mom was assaulted by my father, Mike Rinder, and for that I am seeking justice—justice for her.

I’m here with my mom today, and I wanted to demonstrate with her the lifestyle changes she's had to make because of the broken shoulder and the damage inflicted on her by Mike Rinder.

My mom explains the changes she has had to make in her life in order to cope.

Here is some of what she has said:

• I can’t tie my shoes. So what I do is I wear slip-ons. All my shoes are slip-on shoes and that’s how I deal with that. It is not that big of a deal but it is a restriction.

• I have tried to hold a glass or a cup in my right hand but because of the nerve damage and the other things that impinged on the entire nervous system in my right arm and the inflammation and all the other repercussions, I don't have feeling in two of my fingers. So the glass or cup slips and breaks. I only use paper cups now with lids on—for everything.

• Common everyday things like brushing your teeth. I had to actually learn how to do—I’m right-so I had to teach myself and train my left hand, to one degree or another, to do certain things. I had to figure out how to brush my teeth with my left hand.

• Putting on makeup—or I don’t or very minimal because I can't do it.

• And I wear contact lenses. And that I've been able to learn how to do with my left hand only. Numerous times they fell on the floor and I have to do it again. But that's how I do it. That’s how I live.

• One of the very common things I can’t do, which my friends help me with is, for example open a bottle of Gatorade. It’s been pretty hot this summer. I literally, even with my left hand, I cannot open a bottle. I can’t open anything actually. So I have to go to someone else and ask them, “Could you please open this for me,” which they do. And then I keep it open.

• I have done photography most of my life. And I could not any longer lift or press a shutter on a camera. I literally don’t have the strength and it’s shaking. I tried tripods and various things. It just doesn’t work. So that’s something that just got taken away from me which is that pleasure of doing things that I like to do. In addition to the pain.

• I cannot put my arm up on a desk and leave it there because it doesn’t go that high so I have lots of clipboards to use if I need to write something with my hand or sign something or write a letter or a birthday card. I pull my clipboard and slide it under my hand because I cannot move my fingers. And even so, after a few minutes my arm stops working because it goes numb. So I write intermittently. But that’s how I do it.

• When I type I have a computer. I’ve used a computer right-handed forever until this. So that was a big challenge and it took quite a long time to learn to use my left hand, and I even learned to somewhat type with my left hand only. I switched to a left-handed mouse. And luckily I am a touch typist so that assists.

• To do my laundry I have to have one of my friends carry my laundry down to be done and get assistance in that.

• There’s certain food I can't cut so a friend will cut my food and things like that are now sort of my routine.

• So I’m coping day to day. I can’t lift a box. Opening doors is horrific. If the door itself and the way the door handle is doesn't accommodate my left hand, I use my feet. That’s how I do doors.

That is plenty to endure. And the pain. The pain where Mike Rinder attacked my mom on my forearm and tore out a piece of it, she has scars that if they go in the sun they’re so delicate they start bubbling.

My mom’s arm is constantly swollen. My mom’s shoulder is constantly swollen.

I can’t express how much it hurts her during the day, every day, in addition to the rotator cuff damage and all of that when Mike Rinder pulled her bones he also pulled her shoulder blade. So my mom’s right shoulder blade is also out of alignment and the damage is permanent too. So that causes her a lot of pain and I have to say, she spends too much time just in grief, because it’s hurting her so much every day. And this comes after years of trying to get her arm to even move again, having the operation, doing intense physical therapy for a long time. So that itself—it has been just a long train of pain.

I think that sums it up. This is not right.

Mike Rinder, my father and her husband for thirty plus years, did this and as you can see there's a lot of pain because of his domestic violence attack.

And that pain is caused by Mike Rinder and we're coping and enjoying life but that doesn't mean that he can get away with it.

Thank you.

This is Taryn with Justice4mom.

Domestic violence is painful

Expose the truth.

justice4mom.org