ISANTI, Minn. — “It Is What It Is … but it will become what you make of it.”

The wooden sign hangs in the mud room of the Olson family home, and it’s the credo Matt Olson has lived by every waking second, minute and hour since an accident on a hockey rink in a northwest suburb of Chicago exactly two years ago during a junior game left the former defenseman paralyzed from the chest down.

Seven-hundred thirty excruciating days have gone by.

Yet the upbeat, incredibly strong Olson doesn’t have one single regret.

“I’ve always kind of been that way,” Olson, now 22, said. “I’ve always had the personality that no matter what happens, I’ll be able to get through anything. I need help with everything. I can’t do everything by myself. All my care takes way longer than the average person, and it takes patience. But it’s going to be OK.

“It might be a different way of doing things now, but I can still do things I still want to do. My personality hasn’t changed. I keep going.”

Spend an afternoon with Olson, and it’s impossible not be inspired and uplifted. There’s not one hint of sadness, nor of feeling sorry for himself.

Despite being faced with a life-changing hardship, Olson says, “I’m happy, and I’m the same exact person. I’m going to get through it.”

Olson loved his hockey career and still remains obsessed with the sport. He doesn’t miss a single Wild game, nor a single New York Islanders game after striking up a special friendship with one of their players, fellow Minnesotan Anders Lee.

He doesn’t go a single morning without watching NHL Network.

He has accepted his new normal like a champ and two years later has fallen into a consistent daily routine.

During Matt’s hospitalizations, Doug and Sue Olson traded shifts to be by his side nearly round the clock. “We never saw each other,” Sue said. “We were passing each other on the highway.” (Courtesy the Olson family)

He has feeling from his nipple line up. After first only being able to shrug his shoulders, he has worked exhaustively with his rehab to the point he can now lift his right arm at a 90-degree angle and his left arm about a foot.

He’s taking classes at Anoka-Ramsey Community College in Cambridge, Minnesota, and hopes to get his degree in environmental science. He’s dating the same Texas girl he met while playing junior hockey three years ago in Corpus Christi. Fifty yards from his childhood house, he has moved into a new home outfitted so he can seamlessly get around. And last month, he overcame the stress of flying for the first time since his injury by traveling to the NHL All-Star Game in Tampa, where he posed with the Stanley Cup and met MVP Brock Boeser, a Burnsville native.

“Just sitting in that aisle seat, I felt like a normal person again,” Olson said. “No one really could tell. But after doing that trip, I feel I can go places now. I knew paralyzed people did it, but I was really worried. Now that we did it, I feel I have options now.”

Olson, whose older brother, Steve, 27, lives in Blaine, is especially grateful to his parents, Doug and Sue, who two years after their youngest boy’s accident continue to be at his side but are slowly getting some semblance of their life back.

Anniversaries usually correlate with some sort of celebration. Wednesday is not that. But it’s a milestone nonetheless.

“The first year really was a year of survival. Literally, it was day to day,” Sue Olson said. “I don’t think you realize until you stop and think just how sick he was when we were in Chicago. The first year, we were just so grateful he was still with us, that he didn’t have any head trauma, that he was making progress.

“Two years, I’ve been reflecting on it. We’ve come a long way. It’s been a tough road. But it’s finally settling into a lifestyle.”

February 21, 2016.

Olson, wearing No. 3, scored the first goal of a game for the Chicago Cougars, a team in the United States Premier League, and everything was going as planned.

He was team co-captain, in the midst of a strong season with 12 goals and 35 points, his team was playing well, he was getting looks from Division III colleges like St. Mary’s and Marian.

“I was on the path of what I wanted to do,” Olson said.

With the Cougars ahead 1-0 late in the first period and Olson’s parents streaming the game 440 miles away from inside their 125-year-old farmhouse an hour north of Minneapolis, their heart sank when they realized somebody was down on the ice behind the play.

“I don’t remember seeing him hit the wall,” Sue recalls. “Doug asked … and I just said, ‘Yeah, I think that’s Matt.’”

Olson hit a rut in the ice, lost an edge and crashed violently face-first into the wall.

“I was just laying there, and I knew right away,” Olson said. “I was completely with it. I mean, I had trouble catching my breath, but I didn’t black out. Everything was tingling, and the first thing you want to do is obviously get up. But I couldn’t move. I was like, Oh yeah, this isn’t good.”

Olson laughs.

“It’s funny,” he said, shaking his head. “My whole hockey career, I’d see people get hurt, stay down on the ice, and then get up and be just fine. It used to drive me nuts. I always said, ‘If I’m hurt, I’m going to do everything to get myself off the ice.’ I said, ‘If I’m really hurt, I’m going off on a stretcher.’

“It’s just so weird. That’s what happened.”

“It’s ironic,” added Sue. “You were always so strong on your skates.”

Sue immediately called Matt’s billet mom, who was at the game.

“She said, ‘The ambulance is on the way, but he’s not moving,’” Sue said, tears in her eyes.

The game started a few minutes after 7 o’clock. The accident happened just before 8. Doug and Sue were on the road by 9.

They drove through the night and arrived in Chicago around 3 a.m.

What was that drive like?

Doug, head down, has to walk away.

“Long and dark,” Sue says. “It was hard.”

Their boy sustained a C4 burst dislocation, classified an ASIA A (or complete) spinal-cord injury. His C4 vertebrae broke into multiple pieces and his spinal cord was severely pinched. He’d need surgery to remove the broken C4 and a titanium mesh cage was inserted at that location and was secured to the C3 and C5 vertebrae with rods and screws.

The scene the Olsons arrived to was heartbreaking. If the injuries weren’t bad enough, Olson developed several health problems.

— He had significant post-op fevers that lasted for several weeks. He’d have ice packs placed around him, especially under his armpits, and a chilled sheet under him set at the lowest temperature. His parents would soak washcloths in a tub full of icy water to put on his forehead, and these had to be changed out about every 10 minutes.

“I was always so hot,” Olson said.

— He had a breathing tube inserted after surgery. The breathing tube, after a week, was replaced with a trach, which remained in place until after he transferred to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, six weeks later.

“They said with how high-level my injury is, I had a 50-50 chance of breathing on my own again,” Olson said.

— He was on a respirator for six weeks. Olson was unable to talk the entire time, and his method of communication was using a letter board and spelling out the words as his parents pointed to letters. To acknowledge they reached the correct letter, Olson raised his eyebrows.

“Usually it was me trying to say, ‘Give me some pain meds,’” Olson said, laughing. “I couldn’t eat or drink the entire time. I wasn’t hungry, but I was so thirsty. I could only have ice chips.”

— He was stricken with pneumonia shortly after the initial surgery. That lasted for two weeks. During this time the lower lobe of one of his lungs started to collapse. A chest tube was inserted to remove secretions. The buildup in his lungs would be an on-going battle as Olson was not strong enough to cough. He would have multiple procedures to clear the secretions.

— He developed a pneumothorax in one lung, requiring another chest tube to drain the fluid.

“Yeah, I was super sick,” Olson said. “I was a mess.”

The hardest part was having such a catastrophic accident and not being able to ever ask the doctors, nurses or parents any questions for weeks.

“At times you get super frustrated, but I’ve always been a patient person,” Olson said.

All in all, between the Chicago hospital, his acute rehab at Mayo and time at Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute in Minneapolis, Olson spent 199 days in a hospital before he could move home.

After 199 days in 2 hospitals, 1 rehab facility and 3 cities – I'm finally home! Thank you for all of the support 🏡 pic.twitter.com/KKAnTPyOC6 — Matt Olson (@MattOlso3) September 7, 2016

In Chicago, his parents took a hiatus from their jobs to spend every day with their son. They tag-teamed shifts. Mom would stay up all day. Dad would stay up all night. At Mayo, Doug spent Monday to Friday in Rochester so Sue could go back to her job at Target headquarters. On weekends, Doug would go home and Sue would go to Rochester.

“We never saw each other,” Sue said. “When he got to Courage Kenny, we were passing each other on the highway.”

Doug, a car mechanic for years, has worked the past decade at Thompson Tool & Die in Bradford, Minnesota, manufacturing metal products.

Despite being gone from work for almost five months, “they cut me a paycheck every single week.

“Do you believe that?”

When Olson left Courage Kenny and finally moved home, he had to live in the living room of his old, childhood house that Doug and Sue bought from her parents in 1979.

“I couldn’t go anywhere, really,” Olson said.

“He’d get to the kitchen and have to turn around and come back,” Sue said.

The family lived on a 19-acre property, and they bought another seven-acre lot next door to build a home that would be accessible for their son to navigate. Since you can’t have two homes on the same property, the Olsons worked with the county’s fire department and they will soon assume the Olsons’ old home for controlled burns during training exercises.

With the help of a company that specializes in designing accessible homes for the disabled, the Olsons acted as contractors in designing their new home.

It’s one level. There are no step-ups or step-downs. There’s no carpet. The doorways are wide. The hallways are modified so Matt has no problem with his wheelchair’s turning radius. There’s very little furniture.

“My mom keeps trying to fill it up with furniture, and I’m like, no, the whole point is so Matt can get around,” Sue said, laughing.

Olson’s 460-pound Quantum wheelchair with head-array technology, which “costs more than a new car,” is state-of-the-art. He’s able to control virtually everything by moving switches with his head.

“It took me a week to figure it all out so I wasn’t running into walls,” Olson said.

In Olson’s bedroom, he sleeps on a twin-sized bed with an air mattress that alternates side to side to help with circulation. Next to Olson’s bed is another twin bed. There’s also a recliner. Both are more for his parents’ convenience so at night they can all watch TV (usually hockey) together. They do eventually retire to their own bedroom, where they have a monitor to make certain their son is fine throughout the night.

On his nightstand is an Amazon Echo. He’s able to control his TV, lights in his bedroom and bathroom and his fan by calling out to Alexa, which is about the only thing in Olson’s life that frustrates him at times.

“She works most of the time,” he said, laughing. “But if I want a triple-digit TV station, like 222, she’ll change the TV to 22 immediately. I’m like, ‘You’ve got to pace yourself, lady.’”

On the ceiling is a track that hoists him out of bed and pushes him right into his bathroom and into a chair in an oversized shower.

The construction workers were great. They broke ground at the end of August 2016. The family was moved in by late January 2017 despite tons of rain and a treacherous winter.

“They worked really hard and fast to get it done. They knew how uncomfortable Matt was in our old house. And, they gave us lots of breaks on labor,” Doug said. “Like our heating and air conditioning, our guy bought it from his guy at cost and passed it down to us. So instead of it being marked up twice, it wasn’t marked up at all.”

Olson’s day is all about routine.

Last Friday, when The Athletic visited his home, he woke up at 8 a.m. One of his three rotating personal-care attendants was there to first do range-of-motion exercises on his arms and legs.

He was then fed breakfast and helped in the shower. After brushing his teeth, Olson was placed back into his bed on his side to take pressure off his back.

He then was helped into his clothes.

From waking up to getting dressed usually takes three hours. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Olson attends class in the afternoons with one of his PCA’s.

Since coming home, there was one health scare. Last summer, Olson developed pressure ulcers. His got so badly infected, he had to undergo surgery and was bed-ridden for six weeks.

“My skin’s super sensitive to anything,” he said. “I lost 40 pounds since the accident. I went from 180 to probably 140 pounds. I’ve lost my muscle mass, so I have no fat on me for protection.”

Right now, Olson does outpatient rehab twice a week at Courage Kenny. For insurance to cover more than 10 sessions, he needs to get a doctor’s prescription each time.

He’s hoping to get approved for a standing frame at his house, but it’s almost like a tryout. Every time he goes to rehab, he has to prove he can safely use the apparatus on his own because a person’s blood pressure drops when put into a standing position.

He’s also on a two-year waiting list for Courage Kenny’s ABLE fitness and wellness program.

“A couple months ago, they said we were three to six months away, so it’s getting close,” Olson said.

Because it’s considered a fitness program, insurance won’t cover it.

“But I can’t wait,” Olson said. “I think it helps with my rehab that I was an athlete. All my therapists comment, I’m so willing to do stuff and push myself and always want to do more. They’ve met people that don’t even want to go to therapy and just hate it. I’ve even seen it.”

Right now, the Olsons have good insurance. Typically, if Sue’s insurance from work denies something, the insurance Olson has through USA Hockey accepts it.

Or, vice versa.

The family also has a GoFundMe account and donations can be sent to North American Banking Co. in Roseville, care of “Matt Olson Benefit.”

While most of Olson’s medical expenses are currently covered, he will have medical expenses for the rest of his life.

Olson’s room — and his house — is a treasure trove of memories and hockey collectibles.

On a nightstand next to his bed is a picture of him with his girlfriend, Katie, 21, who’s studying sports marketing and public relations at Texas Tech and visited over winter break.

Over his bed is a picture of then-Chicago Blackhawks Andrew Shaw and Andrew Desjardins visiting him in the hospital and an autographed Blackhawks stick. There’s a University of Minnesota banner featuring their five national championships, several medals he won as a hockey-playing child and an autographed picture and note from Blackhawks color analyst Eddie Olczyk, who was at the hospital two days after Olson’s accident and visited a number of times.

There is also an autographed picture and a framed jersey of Anders Lee.

A couple summers ago, when Lee was coincidentally talking to Dan Brooks, the son of the late Herb Brooks, about what starting a foundation entails, Brooks asked if he wanted to meet Olson. It turns out Courage Kenny is 30 seconds from where Lee lives in Golden Valley, so Lee rushed to see him.

They have been pals ever since.

Huge thank you to @leeberr09 for coming to visit me today! Can't wait to see you kill it this season buddy!🏒 pic.twitter.com/nHvCtbDCyR — Matt Olson (@MattOlso3) September 1, 2016

“The biggest thing I take away every time I see Matt or talk to him, it’s really remarkable how strong he is to take on this awful set of cards he was handed and do whatever he can to get better and be happy and be such a great person,” Lee said. “I don’t think I would be able to do that at all. It really is inspiring. He’s so thankful and grateful for what he has. The attitude that he has is just amazing. I just love seeing and talking to him because he’s such a positive, funny, smart guy.”

On one of Olson’s walls in his bedroom hallway is something really touching: In a frame that reads, “Faith, Hope, Love,” there are pictures of Olson with his occupational therapist, physical therapist and speech pathologist from the Chicago hospital and his therapist from Mayo.

“I wouldn’t have gotten here without them,” Olson said.

The “Four Season” porch next to Olson’s bedroom and adjacent to the living room is a bright room full of windows that Olson uses to ride a special bike.

The view is peaceful, serene and picturesque. Birds busy hanging feeders. Bare branches framing an opening to an ice-covered pond. Magnificent horses, named Remington and Wrangler, standing tranquilly in the snow.

“We get deer back here all the time,” Olson said, smiling. “I love looking out there.”

Olson continues to show off his hockey memorabilia.

When returning from the All-Star Game, Olson just so happened to meet the Wild’s Eric Staal at the Minneapolis airport. Olson didn’t even know Staal knew who he was until a week later when he received an autographed stick from Staal that he used during All-Star Weekend.

On the wall are also autographed sticks from Matt Cullen, Jared Spurgeon, Marian Gaborik, Blake Wheeler, Alex Ovechkin, Anze Kopitar, Craig Anderson and the stick Clayton Keller just so happened to use in overtime to beat the Wild a few weeks ago. Still waiting to be hung up are sticks from Zach Parise, Pavel Datsyuk and Mike Reilly.

In the living room, there’s the actual Emmy that Fox Sports North won for producing “Matt Olson Night” during a Wild-Blackhawks game. The network presented it to Olson as a gift along with care instructions and everything. There’s a Bobby Hull-signed puck, Olson’s senior pictures, a puck from when he scored the game-winning goal in a Little Falls championship game as a peewee. There’s a puck from when he scored his first high-school goal for Totino-Grace against Cooper and his first North American Hockey League goal for Corpus Christi that he notched right on the Mexico border in Rio Grande.

There’s an Olczyk-framed jersey, Olson’s USPHL Defenseman of the Year award and the Spirit of Life Award he was presented during the U.S. Hall of Fame game.

“A lot of special things in here,” Doug says, proudly.

Olson began skating at three years old when he’d try to keep up with two of his cousins on the ice.

He played forward his first two years at Totino-Grace, but his junior year, then-coach Mark Loahr moved him back to defense.

At first, he hated it. But during one practice when he was moved back to forward, “I suddenly realized, I guess I do like playing defense.”

Olson badly wanted to play hockey past high school, so he went the junior route.

He went to NAHL Minot but was one of the last cuts. He went down to the North American Tier III Hockey League in Little Falls, and it was the worst team in the league. Ice fishing over Christmas in Mille Lacs, Olson got a call that the NAHL Minnesota Wilderness was interested.

He played there until the trade deadline, when he was dealt to Corpus Christi. He played there the rest of the season, but in training camp the following season, the coach told Olson he wanted to get younger and Olson was no longer in the plans.

Having nowhere to play, Olson latched on to the new USPHL team in Chicago.

“Everything worked out,” Olson said.

Come again?

“I really have no regrets,” Olson insisted. “Playing juniors those two years, I learned so much. I grew up. I was always a mature kid, but those two years away from home, I got more responsible. We did a lot of stuff in the community and just being in front of people.

“Even since my accident, I’ve gotten in front of schools and talked to students. I would never, ever in my life do that. I was such a shy kid. No way I could do that. This whole situation, I’ve actually become a better person out of it, which is a weird thing to think about. But I really have.”

Still, there are times Olson will be watching a hockey game and say things like, “You guys got to slow down. They go so fast into the boards. Last year in the playoffs when Staal crashed into the wall (in Game 5 of the Wild’s series against the Blues), I couldn’t watch. I just screamed, ‘Oh my God.’”

But the one thing Olson doesn’t want is kids to look at what happened to him and choose not to play.

“I hope it’s the complete opposite,” Olson said. “It’s such a great, fun sport.”

It has been quite the journey, and Olson believes there will come a day that he’ll be able to walk.

“There’s so many people doing good research with epidural stimulation, especially at Mayo,” said Olson, who had his latest checkup with his rehab doctor at Mayo on Monday. “My injury, for how high-level it was, they say it takes the body two years to recover, and then I can start thinking about taking part in different studies.

“Well, we’re at two years.”

Added Mom, “You always have to have hope. If you don’t have hope, there’s a lot of dark days.”

Olson looks up to Jack Jablonski, the former Benilde-St. Margaret’s hockey player who was paralyzed after an injury to his C5 vertebrae. Today, Jablonski goes to school at the University of Southern California, interns for the Los Angeles Kings and has started his Bel13ve in Miracles Foundation to advance medical research and innovative treatments for paralysis.

Jablonski’s vision is a world where paralysis is no longer permanent.

“We’ve talked a few times, and he’s a good person to look at for guidance,” Olson said. “He’s doing incredible stuff, and I want to do stuff like that. He’s a good pioneer and role model to look up to.”

Seven hundred thirty days, 104 weeks, 24 months, two years.

Despite all that’s happened to him, Matt Olson remains positive. “I’m just thankful,” he says. “I mean, a C4 injury, that’s serious.” (Credit: Margo LaPanta)

It has been a long road for Olson and his family since that fateful Feb. 21, 2016, evening.

But things are starting to get back to normal. He has come so far.

“Even breathing on my own, they were shocked when I started doing it for no reason whatsoever,” Olson said. “Two years for me, it’s just another day. But when I look back over these two years, and what I’ve overcome, I am definitely proud. I mean, I even navigated the State Fair crowds last summer.

“I’m just thankful. I mean, a C4 injury, that’s serious.”

Added Sue, “One level higher, he wouldn’t be breathing right now. He’d be on a respirator.”

Olson breathes from his diaphragm. He can’t get big breaths.

“I run out of air,” Olson said, laughing. “Like I can’t cough to save my life. And my sneezes, my sneezes are little girly things. I get so much crap for that.”

Olson jokes, “I wish I was C5 so I could have more arm and hand movement. It’s funny. When you do your rehab, and you meet somebody else, you’re like, What level are you?

“I haven’t met too many C4s. I’ve met a lot of C5s though.”

Olson, kiddingly and with a big laugh, says, “The C4s don’t like the C5s.”

Olson has come so far, his parents, who met showing horses, are actually going to go on a well-deserved vacation in July. They’re driving to Wyoming to attend the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo.

“They’re leaving me,” Olson said, drawing a room full of laughter.

“We felt like we could never leave,” Sue said. “We were always worried about Matt. And we didn’t want Matt to be alone. But we need to take back our lives a bit, too, and that was so hard. That was so hard. But I feel like we’re finally getting there.”

Said Olson, “Yeah, I’m pretty lucky to have them.”