It Was June 14, 2015. I laid on the floor in the dark. Collapsed in the fetal position, not being able to stop the gushing tears. My 6-week-old deaf and blind baby cooed next to me. Deafblind. That was the diagnosis. Gosh, that word hurt. It hung in the air; like a black, menacing storm cloud. No. Worse. A tornado, F4 at least. Her condition was incurable. The ache was deep, unfathomable.
I looked over at her, wholly unaware of her difficult life ahead. I had just gotten home from the eye doctor. The week before that, the audiologist. Watched their pitying, downward shift of face as they uttered long medical words that meant hard things. Bilateral retinal colobomas left little Lynna’s vision “severely limited”; absent auditory nerves and dysplastic semicircular canals meant she’s almost deaf. Well she could hear a jet engine, they said. And that was just the start of her ‘differences,’ words they use to make the news land better. The geneticist confirmed CHARGE syndrome, which meant she also faced heart abnormalities, throat surgeries, skeletal deformities, compromised organ systems, and a hundred other things. My heart wanted to find the light at the end of the tunnel but, hell, there was barely enough light for the step I was on.
My name is Lindsey Carter. Today I own and operate FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Centers in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a franchised physical therapy private practice, with three other locations in development. That moment in my life was 9 years ago, and if I’m honest, the deaf blind route hasn’t gotten easier. The undercurrent of heartache lives deep. But eventually, I picked myself up off that floor. I knew I had to. I knew that I had to decide she was perfect, or else she would never think she was. I realized that sometimes, you just have to choose to feel better; because, waiting on those feelings to come organically is a fool’s errand. I threw myself recklessly into Lynna’s therapies – physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, vision therapy, auditory therapy; to the tune of 7 per week, every week. Homeschooled so I had time for her “extra” needs. I didn’t know if she’d talk, so I learned as much American Sign Language as I could so we could communicate. Rolling appointments of neurologists, otolaryngologists, cardiologists, orthopedists, and cardiothoracic surgeons. Swallowing hard as I laid her down on the table for her open-heart surgery at three years old, my eyes glossing over as the pediatric anesthesiologist briefed me on potential complications with such a “highly complex, medically fragile child.” Years pass; the pace continued.
But by far and away, Lynna’s hardest challenge was always physical therapy, where complex ambulatory (movement) tasks are stymied by her stacked disabilities. Difficult to walk when you can’t see. Difficult to balance when you’re missing balance fluid. Many of the abilities that arrive at almost automatically for a typical child, require an amalgamation of many smaller skills you don’t realize until you have a kiddo that doesn’t have any of them. By one year of age, some children are walking, but Lynna still couldn’t hold her head up; she was infantile in abilities by all measures. It stung watching my friend’s younger kiddos surpass her. But she was at least, progressing. By two, she could sit. We used leg braces, standers, and heavy adaptive walkers.
By three, she could crawl. Then came miniature blind canes, eye patches, and home exercise plans. I had trained my eyes to laser focus on any uneven surface on the ground, scooping her up so much my back knew more ache than rest. I couldn’t get there a few times, and she has stitches to prove it. She couldn’t run and play like her peers. Couldn’t climb through those ubiquitous McDonald’s style playgrounds or maneuver across the mulched playground without wobbling. And any fall was particularly dangerous to boot, as it could damage the remaining residual vision that she does have. But we managed. I would carry her through the equipment to the embedded puzzles, awkwardly share the jump rope so she could join the other little girls, or hand-over-hand assist so she could stack the blocks too; but I didn’t dare leave her out. All of life was a constant integration of therapeutic skills we had been taught. I was so tired. And yet, something beautiful had transpired. Thousands of therapy sessions and exercises later, our therapists had become like family to us, and I had fallen in love with the profession that gave my kid a shot at “normal.” Or at least closer to such a thing. Lynna, meanwhile, had offered them to live with us no less than 17 times or so. Despite her extensive physical disabilities, as perhaps a sliver of kindness within a tough existence, Lynna turned out to not have a single cognitive delay, once even asking, “Mom, what’s it like to see with both eyes?”
In the background, my husband and I had been diligently storing money away. Neither of us had come from wealth, but we had great parents that taught us to dig deep and save where you can. I found some success after college and worked as Lynna’s nurse during the early years. My husband was a Captain in the Army, and then parlayed that into a successful career in the medical device industry, but mostly, we just chose to radically save a lot instead of spend.
By age 35, we had hit a million net worth and were considering investment options. We looked at food businesses, landscaping companies, boutique fitness brands; but my heart just kept coming back to physical therapy, because these people had truly changed our lives. It’s where passion met drive.
We opened our first clinic in January of 2023. The first month saw 30 visits with one therapist on staff, and we just closed a year and a half later, with 408 and four therapists. As a franchise owner/investor with FYZICAL, I get to do the business side that I enjoy, and my clinicians get to do what they love: treat patients. Now you’ll see Lynna bopping in and out of the clinic, helping me open mail and sharing her story with our patients. She talks of her love of stuffies, her best friend Jayde, and life in fourth grade, where she recently completed her first whole paragraph entitled, “The Greatest Thing About Me is My CHARGE syndrome.”
It’s an interesting concept, though, isn’t it? I choose to be a very involved owner in my business. I purposefully tag in at the front desk, reorganize the stock closet, and greet many of my patients by name. I know when Linda’s grandson plays soccer and Bill’s favorite restaurant, and I really value my employees. Yet I discovered it wasn’t me that was truly valuable. Business leadership guru Simon Sinek was right when he said, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” And wouldn’t you know it, my secret sauce ended up being what started in the dark all those years ago, in one of the toughest seasons of my life. People resonated with the “why” we bought the franchise. It was her, my sweet little anomaly that made all the difference. I’m no more a whiz than the next person, and there is still so much I am learning everyday, but I have the heart, and Lynna taught me what it means to try.
So I would say, if you have the opportunity to buy a business, don’t just look at the numbers, buy a passion. One that you can authentically get behind; that’s the play. The why matters. Find yours.