A woman paralyzed from the chest down experienced an unexpected breakthrough when her foot began to twitch during a fish pedicure in Las Vegas.
Kacia Julius, 32, broke her back in a car accident on November 9, 2024. The vehicle she was riding in slipped on ice, hit a rock and flipped.
Doctors diagnosed her with a complete ASIA A T5 level spinal cord injury, paraplegia. The year that followed has been “grueling and traumatic in every way,” Kacia said.
But she changed her mindset. She realized she would rather dedicate her life to trying to walk again than not try at all.
To stay accountable, she started documenting her recovery on social media.
On September 20, Kacia and her partner, Falak, stopped in Las Vegas during a road trip between their two homes in Texas and Washington State. Their hotel offered fish pedicure services.
She decided to try it. Her late father’s favorite song began to play. He had passed away eight years earlier on that exact date.
As the fish touched certain points on her foot, the smallest twitches appeared. Kacia asked Falak to capture the moment on video while she tried to move her feet.
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“This moment was very liberating for me, as well as emotional,” Kacia said. “It was the anniversary of my father’s passing, but the crazy part was that just before my foot first moved, my dad’s favorite song came on, a song our whole family loves.”
The experience felt like a rollercoaster. “The moment was really a rollercoaster; I started off being shook and eager to keep trying,” she said. “Then I felt skeptical when movements wouldn’t happen every time.”
She spent 30 minutes trying to control the movements. “Then I tried hard for 30 minutes to target movements, and I was getting responses based off of the specific foot I tried on,” Kacia said.
A passerby who witnessed the moment told her they would bring their cousin with a similar injury to try the same treatment.
“Recovery has been so challenging but I have decided to put everything into trying to walk again,” Kacia said. “I realize that I would rather try even if it takes my entire life than not at all.”
Through her social media channel, she hopes to inspire others. “One thing I need is to know that it’s possible and exactly how to do it,” she said.