Our Love Story:
Jodi (Schryer) & Justin LaMarche

At the historic Middlebury Inn, Middlebury, Vermont

It all began when I received an Instant Message from a stranger one afternoon my senior year in high school. Little did I known, seven years later, that stranger and I would be saying, “I do”.

How We Met and Our Relationship

While Justin and I talked online for months, we didn’t meet until a couple of weeks before I left for college in upstate New York. After seeing each other almost every day before I left, saying “good bye” wasn’t easy; it made us realize just how much we had already fallen for each other in such a short time.

[Click to see enlarged photo of stairwell image at right.]

At first, we were unsure about pursuing a relationship with me in college hours away. However, we quickly decided that the distance was not going to prevent us from being together and began dating.
After college we moved in together and were enjoying our life together until our world was turned upside down.

Just months before we planned to move to New Hampshire, where I would attend law school, a wall fell on Justin at his construction site, breaking his tailbone, two vertebrae, and his pelvis in four places. On top of that, he developed Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) in his right foot, a chronic, painful, and progressive neurological condition that affects the skin, muscles, joints, and bones.

While Justin escaped being paralyzed by less than a quarter inch, he was bound to a wheelchair and faced the possibility of never walking again. We questioned whether I should postpone my plans to attend law school, but eventually decided against it because it would only further delay our plans to get married and start a family. So, as I moved to New Hampshire, Justin moved into the Fanny Allen Hospital to start an intensive inpatient physical therapy program. We continued to support each other as best we could; Justin supporting my plans to attend law school despite being in one of the most trying times in his life and me supporting his recovery by traveling home and spending every weekend with him in the hospital.

[Photographs by Great Impressions Portrait Studio]

After a couple of months of therapy, Justin left on crutches, still not walking due to the RSD. However, within days of leaving the hospital, he resorted to his own “therapy” by putting down the crutches and forcing himself to walk through the pain. Just over a year later, Justin made a full recovery. While the experience was a nightmare, it made us realize how much we loved each other and that we would always be there for each other no matter what.

Read page 2 of the Jodi (Schryer) & Justin LaMarche Love Story

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Index of all Love Stories online at Vermont Bride Magazine