Road to recovery for Big Mo Blues Show’s host

One wrong move forever changed John Heim’s world, but not his spirit.

On May 15, 2018, the 6-foot-6-inch, 250-pound retired music teacher and voice of the Big Mo Blues Show on KCCK-FM went out to water the geraniums he and his grandkids were transplanting at his Marion home.

“I stepped in a pot and went down in pea gravel around the front door, and I hit (the ground) right between my eyes,” he said, which caused a laceration. He credits his safety glasses with protecting his eyesight.

But that was the least of his injuries.

“It was just a real bad accident. It was just a freak deal,” he said. “All the weaknesses in my body came to a head, and the accident caused them to break down. …

“When I first hit the ground, I saw a huge flash but I stayed conscious. And then I did a body check, and nothing was working, but I could breathe and I could speak and I could see. I could move my hands a little bit, and I could move the big toe on my left foot. I knew if I could feel the big toe on the left foot, I was OK — I was going to be able to walk again.”

His injury was categorized as a “C3 incomplete,” meaning he didn’t have total paralysis after the accident.

“I still have partial function of everything from the diaphragm down, counting my elbows,” he said. “When I fell, there was enough amyloid tissue built up in my spinal cord that it choked it off (leaving) just a tiny pinhole for nerve impulses to go through.

“What that means is that I can use my legs and my hands, but it causes me a lot of discomfort. I can walk with a walker — I can do that — but it’s uncomfortable.”

Because of that pain, he spends much of his time in a wheelchair. But he can drive, take care of his hygiene needs and play a 3/4 size B-flat tuba, which he proudly played in church at Christmas. With enough dexterity in his right hand, he also can still play a little piano, his old sousaphone and a three-string box guitar.

Unfortunately, he no longer sings in his rumbling basso voice. “I’m croaky. I’ve lost my resonance,” he said. “I wish I could.”

However, his speaking voice still hits the airwaves. His legion of listeners from across the country are happy he can make his way into the KCCK studios at Kirkwood Community College, thanks to the accessible renovations made before his accident.

About five months after the accident, he was back on the air with his Friday night radio show, which is the only place you’ll hear him talking the blues. He has stayed upbeat throughout his recovery.

“I've never seen anybody who attacks their physical therapy like John does,” KCCK General Manager Dennis Green said in previewing the sold-out Jan. 29 daBluesapalooza party at Olympic South Side Theatre in Cedar Rapids. Blues players from Eastern Iowa and across the country performed to celebrate milestones for Heim and 30-year KCCK Saturday night blues show host Bob DeForest of Cedar Rapids.

“The time I spent there was just great,” Heim said of the party. “It was wonderful to see everybody. It was a good spot to be over by the elevator, because of all the musicians just coming in and out before they were playing. And I got to meet so many of my fans face to face, too. It was wonderful. I got to meet my sponsors and I got to meet friends — people I’ve seen and people that call and people that listen” to his blues show, which airs from 6 to 9 p.m. Fridays on 88.3 FM and online at kcck.org

Journey back

Heim has come a long way, but his work isn’t over.

“It’s now trying to get to where I was at 8:59 a.m. on May 15, 2018,” he said. “What we’re doing now is just a lot of physical therapy.”

His wife, Jackie, saw him fall, and summoned help right away. The first stop was Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids, then onto the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, where a titanium plate was inserted at the C3 vertebrae in his neck. He’s not sure if he actually fractured his neck or if that vertebrae was pressing on the spinal cord.

“I’m a little fuzzy on that,” he said, but the plate did help stabilize his neck.

He thinks he was there for about two weeks, then came back to UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids for about four weeks, during which time he applied to the QLI Rehabilitation Center in Omaha for intensive therapy. He was accepted, and after battling with his insurance company over coverage, he transferred there in June and stayed into October 2018.

“It was five hours, at least, of rehab every day, five days a week,” he said. “It really pushed me to quickly get the thresholds I needed to be a functional human again.”

A GoFundMe account set up to help with expenses, including his $10,000 insurance deductible, raised $23,694 — more than double the $10,000 goal.

“The outpouring was unbelievable,” he said, adding that he didn’t know the exact figure raised. When told the dollar amount, he exclaimed: “Wow. Wow. Holy smoke. That’s wonderful.”

He’s grateful for everyone who has helped along this journey.

Luckily, his home didn’t need major renovations.

“We had to do some serious bathroom remodeling,” he said, but he’s happy to be able to shower and take care of those personal needs. The women’s group from his church paid for an electric hoist for his garage, which allows him to wheel onto a platform to raise or lower him the approximately 28-inch difference between the house and garage.

“I’ve been part of that church for 30 years, and I want to give them a big shoutout,” he said. “That’s the other part of my life, too. I want to be a good Christian, but I love the blues.”

Moving forward

He continues to receive an hour of physical therapy five days a week, often from Kirkwood students who can learn from the hands-on experience of putting him through his paces, especially with stretching.

“I plateaued a long time ago in my rehab,” he said. “I still do lots of physical therapy because it’s the best thing I can do. … My body wants to fight itself, and when I am most comfortable is when I am in a fetal position, laying on my side. I get really scared when I start to do that, so what I have to do is keep loose. I’ve got to be stretched.”

Along with the physical challenges comes the mental and emotional side of learning to live with the challenges of change.

“So much of my recovery has just come down to acceptance,” Heim said, "and accepting the fact that I couldn't play music any more — or I couldn't play the things I wanted to — and accepting the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to walk or do things like I used to do. And that was hard, but … you only get 15 minutes of self-pity a day. At QLI, all you had to do was go down to the hall and watch the people who were really messed up.

“You’ve got to keep a good attitude and just keep going. Another catch phrase I picked up on once was ‘MAV’, which was ‘mindfulness,’ and then the other two kind of feed into mindfulness. It’s ‘mindfulness, attitude and vision.’ Keeping your head up, looking towards the horizon, not looking down at your feet all the time. ‘What am I gonna be doing? What do I really want to do with my life?’ All of that creates mindfulness.

"Just being a Christian, and just being a good man, and being kind and just — all the things that you need.“

Musical balance

Growing up listening to the underground radio as a kid in Dawson, Neb., “population 175,” music also has been a constant and driving force, through 27 years of teaching music and directing choirs at Allison-Bristow northwest of Waterloo, as well as Marion and Linn-Mar schools.

He’s a big proponent of keeping music in everyday lives.

“People don’t sing enough. People don’t dance enough,” he said. “The only time we sing is at ballgames, I guess maybe because it’s a large gathering of humans. And we do sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ and we sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame,’ but people don’t sing like they used to.

“Music will heal you if you let it, and those have been words I’ve been living by. The blues will heal you if you let it.

“I don’t just listen to blues. I listen to all kinds of things,” he said. “I know towards the end of my life, I’m going to get more and more involved in quote-unquote classical music. I will probably go back and listen to all the Brahms and all the Schubert and all the things that I really need to absorb.

“I’ve been hooked by the blues my whole life, ever since I heard Muddy Waters, thinking, ‘Is that guy on the same planet I am?’ Just knowing that was there and that was all there to explore.

“Now my access to music is full, and I can finally find these things that I’ve been looking for, and try and find these blues things. But the classical side of it is coming through. It’s just yin and yang — it’s the musical balance — and it worked out pretty well in what I need to do be musical and express myself.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com