Something to look forward to

AB22 Comments

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the slow pace of recovery following my Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). I have written about this before, about how challenging it is to work SO hard every day and focus so much of my energy on healing and recovery, yet accept that the changes and improvements come oh so slowly. (But the good news is that at least the improvements HAVE been occurring…).

Patience, as it turns out, is one of the most crucial factors for anyone wanting to recover from this devastating injury, and patience, as I’ve known my whole life, is absolutely NOT a quality that I embody.

Imagine living every day with no idea how soon your body will improve (if at all) and with no assurance that you’ll ever get to achieve your objectives. Imagine going through the majority of your day working towards a goal that may not be realized for a matter of months or years. That, in a nutshell, is what I mentally encounter and struggle with every morning when I wake up, and every night before I go to sleep. It’s enough to drive someone crazy, but thankfully I’ve maintained my sanity thus far. (Note: I will do my best to warn all of you with a cautionary blog post if I ever feel like I’m going over the edge…)

One tactic that has helped me maintain my focus and patience, is to always have something to look forward to.

This is something I’ve done my whole life actually, as a way of rewarding myself for completing a task or having the patience to get through a challenge, obstacle, adverse situation, or simply, a long wait. That said, it’s taken on a new precedence now as I use this tactic all the time to keep my concentration and focus on recovery intact, without getting overwhelmed by the daunting elements of time and uncertainty.

As long as I have something fun and positive to look forward to, it gives me a reason never to give up or lose patience of my ultimate goals. I tell myself that even though I may be frustrated or impatient right now, I gotta make it through to (insert event to look forward to here), and then I’ll reassess; no giving up before that. Once that event happens, I think of the next one and the process begins again.

I’m not necessarily referring to looking forward to huge, important moments or events. Most of the time, it’s as simple as a relaxed weekend brunch with my girlfriend, an upcoming meetup with friends, a trip to the swimming pool (one of my favorite therapies), or an afternoon in the park. It doesn’t take much. The beauty of this is that when there is a bigger thing to look forward to (i.e. a trip out of town), it motivates me even more and fuels me to keep working hard until I get to that moment.

I know it seems simple or obvious to point this out, but the fact that I’ve become so conscious of the importance of this tactic means to me that it’s worth acknowledging and appreciating.

Making magic in Maui

AB26 Comments

It’s impossible not to feel energized, inspired, motivated and yet completely relaxed and calm when I enter into Alejandra’s peaceful studio surrounded by palm trees and multi-colored flowers swaying in the gentle, flowing breeze. This is upcountry Maui after all, the quieter part of the island away from all of the resorts, hotels and most of the island’s tourists. We’re minutes from one of the best kitesurfing beaches in the world, which makes sense since the only thing disrupting the bright sunny skies and the nighttime tropical showers is the persistent wind, not fierce or annoying but warm and invigorating.

Within seconds of entering this incredible space, I fully understand why Alejandra has chosen to have her studio in this location. I encounter an unquestionable energy of healing and positivity as I’m greeted by the warm smiles of Alejandra and her colleagues. I immediately know that I’m going to be able to get some serious work done here, so I get right to it…

It’s difficult to describe exactly what Alejandra’s method is. She has created her own system of exercise/movement/training/therapy that she calls Neuro Kinetic Pilates but it’s so much more than just Pilates. The moment I started working with her, I could tell how skilled she was. Following the request she makes to all of her clients to take my shirt off, I felt slightly overexposed, especially with my belly popping out which is a result of still not having control of my abs. She reassures me, “If I’m gonna get anything done, I have to see how your body moves and I have to start poking to see if those muscles are firing! Are you ready for that?”

Alejandra got me up on the Reformer, the Cadillac, the Barrel and a few other pieces of equipment that are commonly used in Pilates. She used pulleys and bands and cables, stretched me and yanked me and got my body in positions it had never been in with the final result being me more exhausted doing her exercises than anything I had previously done. Each exercise I did consisted of multiple simultaneous prompts from her asking me to do what seemed nearly impossible. How could I possibly hold my balance in this position without falling over, while still engaging my lat muscles, keeping my collarbones open yet chest in towards my ribs, breathing with my diaphragm and trying to suck my belly in all at the same time??!!

Alejandra uses fascia lines to connect different parts of the body to each other and awaken neural connections that are damaged. And just so you know, understanding fascia lines isn’t some alternative, eastern medicine, hippy dippy approach. In fact, when I asked her if the fascia lines had anything to do with acupuncture meridians, she simply shrugged her shoulders and said that she had no idea because all of her training was in western medicine. Simply put, fascia is the connective tissue that surrounds and connects muscles, nerves, and blood vessels and runs through our entire body. One way to think of it is that instead of having over 600 separate muscles throughout the body, we have just one muscle with 600 different parts to it but all interconnected and related. (Check out this link to learn more)

So I’ll leave it there for now and throw in a couple videos of some of the exercises that I did, so you can see what this all looks like. I’ll write another post about my work with Alejandra with more videos and maybe get into the theory a bit more so stay tuned….

100% Active mental effort

AB31 Comments

I want to attempt to explain one of the more nebulous and perplexing aspects of my recovery. I’ve been wrapping my head around this for a while now but I haven’t quite figured out how to put it all into words and hopefully make it understandable for people without a Spinal Cord Injury. There is a significant process that is noticeably more difficult for me now than before my accident: the monumental, almost overwhelming mental effort that I have to put into all of my rehab.

Every exercise, movement, or activity that I do involves a massive mental commitment from me. This is nothing like what most of us are used to doing when we lift a weight, take a step, hold a stretch or pedal a bike. As an able bodied person, those actions are performed subconsciously. You don’t have to tell yourself and instruct seven different parts of your arm how to curl a dumbbell… you just do it. You don’t have to close your eyes, channel your breathing, try to contract one muscle while relaxing another just to take a step when you’re on a run… you just place one foot in front of the other and continue on. Not so with a Spinal Cord Injury.

Everything I do involves me REALLY thinking about it, specifically when it comes to those parts of my body that are most damaged by my injury and not functioning properly. The nerve signals just aren’t getting through like they used to so it takes me that much more effort to try to engage a muscle that hasn’t effectively received the signal to engage. This is what makes an injury to the nervous system so debilitating. It’s not just a matter of effort. If it were, then the many hours a day I spend on my rehab would have much quicker results.

I think back to what it felt like to exercise before my accident and it all just seems so easy to me now! I didn’t really have to think THAT much about what I was doing. I would just DO things, perform movements, complete activities, and ultimately I’d get stronger and fitter. I was never mentally drained from going on a run or biking half the day because I could do that repetitive motion subconsciously and with little to no mental strain, all the while listening to my iPod or chatting with a friend. Nowadays, if I don’t give 100% of my mental attention and focus to the specific movement I’m doing, not only will I have little to no chance of effectively completing the movement, I will finish the activity without any sense of accomplishment.

Another way to put it is that those muscles that I’m trying so desperately to wake up and reestablish the connection with will only have the teeniest, tiniest chance to get that signal from my brain only if I try really, really hard to break through the neurological impasse that’s taken root in various parts of my nervous system. This whole process has educated me greatly on how incredibly electrical our bodies are. No matter how big or strong our muscles may be, nothing can happen unless the wiring that’s distributed throughout the body is functioning properly. As a result, I often have to close my eyes and remove all visual stimuli in order to be able to give sufficient mental awareness and energy to what I’m doing.

This may seem arduous and exhausting, and it was at first, but now I have to admit I kinda like it. It makes me very present in what I’m doing, it forces me to tune everything else out and focus fully on the task at hand and although I wish I could see the results more quickly than I do, I know that this tremendous effort is what will sustain my recovery and continue the healing that I so desperately strive for.

If you build it, will it come? And when? And how? And….

AB40 Comments

One of the most memorable movie quotes of my childhood was from “Field of Dreams” where Kevin Costner is told, “if you build it, he will come” in reference to building a baseball diamond in his cornfield which will summon his beloved baseball players from the past to come and play ball. A pretty straightforward cause and effect statement. Do this, and that will ensue.

I find myself thinking of this quote a lot recently, in the context of my recovery and dealing with all of the questions and doubt that arise and try to throw me off track. I’ve been “building it” for over a year now. This time last year is when I felt strong enough to ignore the lifestyle of adaptation and flat out laziness that the medical establishment was providing me, and took the initiative to start an aggressive routine of rehab, exercise and physical and mental hard work.

Up until my accident, I had always understood that the causal relationship between hard work and reward was reliable and relatively short-term, particularly with physical improvements (I wrote an entire post about this subject). Now, after a year of working so hard everyday, of literally channeling so much of my energy towards recovery and healing, I’m often left wondering…ok, can someone throw me a bone here? I need something to happen already!

Yes I’ve had improvements, yes my health and overall strength has improved, yes I can still wiggle my toe, yes I can sit taller, push further and continue to challenge my capabilities and improve upon them, but all of that said, I have to put this out there: I need a breakthrough.

I’m reminded of the conversations I’ve had with friends so many times about being single and wanting to find a girlfriend. Or of changing job paths and furiously job hunting and the advice we would always give each other when frustrations would hit new highs. “You’re looking too hard for it. Sometimes these things happen when we ease up on searching or expecting them, and then all of a sudden, boom! it happens.”

I have no doubt that this applies to my current situation. I want improvement badly. I want validation for all of this hard work I’ve done and I want it to be more than a toe I started wiggling nine months ago or gradual strength that I’ve built up over time. But I’m looking so hard for it! I wake up every morning and wonder if this will be the day that I’ll have that breakthrough. I’m trying not to expect it, but I expect it. And then I try to rid myself of the expecting of not expecting. And so it goes….

I wish this injury was more forgiving in this way. I wish there was a formula and even if I knew it would take a long time, I could find peace in knowing that the next breakthrough would indeed arrive. But that’s not the way this injury is. It rips you apart and takes away everything and leaves you with more doubt, uncertainty and ambiguity than you could ever imagine.

I can hear the advice from everyone already: Get rid of the expectations. Cultivate patience. Find peace with the situation. Make the most of the present moment without any consideration of the future and what it will bring. Life is too short so enjoy what you have right now and relish every moment.  I say, easier said than done. 

The funny thing is, I’ve actually been able to do all of these things but only to a certain extent. Much of my efforts recently have revolved around patience and letting go of expectations, and I’ve certainly gotten better at this. I have no choice but to continue doing these things and physically continuing to work as hard as possible but I still can’t help thinking that because I’m building it, it will come…

One in a million and a trip to SoCal

AB21 Comments

One in a million. Those were the odds that were given to Aaron Baker for his chances to ever feed himself again. Aaron suffered a Spinal Cord Injury similar to mine 14 years ago and these were the words that his doctor told his mother. Nothing about walking, nothing about standing up on his own, or even pushing himself in a wheelchair, but just simply his chances for feeding himself.

In my last post I shared the new page on my blog highlighting the stories that are inspirational to me and front and center among those is Aaron’s story. Through years of hard work and unwavering determination, not to mention incredible support from his mother and community, Aaron slowly regained control of his body and was able to fight his way back to his feet, and to his bike! A formerly sponsored motocross racer, he traded his motorized dirt bike for a road bike and ended up crossing the country twice, riding over 6,000 miles to share his story and raise awareness about SCI. Now he has opened a rehab gym north of Los Angeles with the intention to help as many other people with SCI and other injuries as possible.

I bring this up not only because of the continued inspiration I get from Aaron’s story but also because after speaking to him on the phone and learning more about the methods that he used for his recovery and his amazing, one-of-a-kind therapist Taylor (a kinesiology mastermind who now runs the therapy program at Aaron’s gym), I’ve decided to take a short break from my typical schedule and come to Southern California for a few days to mix things up again. I’ve mentioned how helpful it is for me to change my patterns, go somewhere new, meet new people and have different people work with me so that’s what has brought me here.

I could not be more grateful for this opportunity to come and meet people who in my eyes are like superheroes. I see people like Aaron, Laquita (his mother), and Taylor as beacons of shining light amidst a pervasive darkness in the SCI recovery world. For every one like them there are too many other people who say that to not get used to this “disabled” reality is to do yourself an injustice and to put “unrealistic” dreams of recovery to the side and move on with life. I’m honored to have this opportunity to meet these incredible individuals and I’m looking forward to sharing my experience with them in my next post.

Wonders of the internet

AB41 Comments

The internet really blows me away sometimes. I know I’m stating the obvious and sounding pretty cliche so let me say this instead: I can’t imagine what this injury would be like 10, 20 or 30 years ago, specifically in regards to the difference in social connectivity then vs. now.

Last week a friend posted my Al Jazeera video at Ekso Bionics on Upworthy.com, a site that I didn’t know much about previously. Within minutes, I had emails, blog comments, Facebook messages, and all kinds of communication from people all over the world who had seen the story and felt inspired enough to read my blog and to contact me personally. I was blown away. I have had a couple of big social media days since I started writing this blog but this broke all the records. The communication kept flooding in over the weekend and I’m still barely catching up to all of it.

As a result of just this recent wave of traffic, I’ve made new contacts, connected with people who have the same injury as me to swap stories, received extraordinarily generous offers of help and support from complete strangers, and read sincere, kind messages of love, positivity and encouragement from people I don’t know. I make it a frequent point on this blog to share my gratitude and always recognize those things I do have despite all of the adversity that life has thrown me with this injury, so I have to take a moment to express my thanks to everyone who has read my blog whether you’ve been following me from the beginning or just recently joining me on my path to recovery.

We live in a time where I’m fortunate enough to click a button and upload a video that instantly goes global and motivates people to send me their words of support. There are websites out there specifically to help people raise money or organize events to give themselves a better shot at improving their condition. By connecting with some of the readers and visitors of my blog, I’ve learned about cutting edge treatments for spinal cord injury (SCI), brand new devices and equipment, and read about prolific research that is paving the way for a better understanding of how the spinal cord heals. I can’t imagine how different it would be if I didn’t have access to such forms of communication and (I have to admit) I wonder if or how much my recovery would have suffered if I didn’t live in an age where so much information is so incredibly accessible.

Last year, when I was still in the hospital, I had my first conversation with Grant Korgan (a fellow survivor of SCI and an incredible and inspiring person) and the first thing he said to me as I wheezed and forced out a barely audible sentence was, “bro, there is SO much love out there, just waiting for you.” I’m feeling grateful to be able to realize this every day, and in novel and interesting ways. Thank you all for giving me so much continued inspiration and for keeping me on my path to recovery.

One year ago…

AB106 Comments

Today marks one year since I badly broke my neck, since my life turned upside down, and since everything I ever knew about my body, my health, my accomplishments, my ambitions and my future were all thrown out and it all hit the restart button. I have to admit, I’ve been dreading this day for quite some time now and I could feel in recent weeks that my stress was building about what this day means to me and what I should do moving forward.

On the one hand it devastates and frightens me to think that an entire year has gone by since I last willingly moved my legs. I used to get antsy and grumpy if I went a few days without running, biking or exercising my entire body somehow. For the last year I’ve had to settle for rebuilding my body piece by piece, and slowly accepting that I could (and would) still regularly push myself to my physical limits, even if I didn’t have function of my entire body. It’s scary and depressing and horrifying to realize how much has changed in me physically since before my accident. To think of the physical accomplishments that I had, to think of how much respect I had for my body and how that translated to what I ate, how I behaved, and how I approached life in general, and to think that all of that has transformed now…words can’t describe it.

I remember waking up in the hospital, under heavy medication, staring at the ceiling because I was unable to move my head and not being able to see my legs but knowing that something just didn’t feel right. I remember every conversation I’ve had with every single doctor and how each of them wanted to show that they “had the answer” by telling me how soon my body’s rehabilitative abilities would stop. Some told me six months, others said one year or more but they all had a firm belief that after a spinal cord injury, the healing would reach this magical point in time and just come to a halt.

Never mind that this sounds bogus and arbitrary. Never mind that case after case of people with this injury have had changes and improvements in their body two, five, eight, ten, twenty years after their injuries! Never mind that by saying these things, they were placing a limit on my potential and possibly devastating my spirit. Never mind that their “medical knowledge” was supposed to trump the power of will, of hope, of dedication, of faith, of perseverance, and of love.

And I don’t just mean the love that comes from family, friends, community and others, but of the love that comes from within. The love I had for everything that I was capable of before my accident. The love for enjoying life on my own terms, the love of being able to stand and walk and jump and kneel and lean and kick and tumble and tumble and tumble…and RISE. When do we fall and NOT want to get back up? Does it ever happen that a baby that’s learning to walk stumbles and falls and doesn’t try to do it all over again, albeit after a few tears? So why should this be any different? If a baby can do it, why can’t a grown man, let alone a grown man who has so much still to live for?

I remember leaving the hospital seven weeks after my injury and my doctor (who I’d seen and spoken to every single day during my time at inpatient rehab) telling me not to engage in too much activity or put too much hope or effort into my recovery. “All of this acupuncture, exercise therapy, alternative interventions and these other things out there…all of this is just experimental and there’s no proof of its potential efficacy in healing after a spinal cord injury. The body will heal as it will, there’s not much you can do so you might as well just wait for it to come.”

Oh really? Well just watch me…

I’m not naive. I’m not expecting everything to just go back to the way it was. I know that recovery is slow and the last year has proven that to me over and over. Nothing about this process is going to be easy or quick and I’ve accepted that. But I also know that my body desperately wants to get better. I know that it makes no sense for the body to heal for 365 days and then on the 366th day just suddenly stop and say, “ahhhh ok, I think we’re done here.” I know that I’ve made extraordinary gains in the last year and I see no justification for the belief that things are just going to slow down or stop now. My attitude isn’t scientifically or medically proven but I think that my recovery is one of the many things out there that cannot, and maybe will not, ever be explained by medical reasoning.

Despite the overwhelming challenges that come with my current situation, I’m extremely grateful for some of the lessons that I’ve learned in this last year, many of which I’ve written about on this blog. I’ve learned of the resilience of the human condition and how strong we can be in the face of overwhelming adversity coming from so many different angles. I’ve learned about the meaning of faith and how I’ve been able to interpret my own understanding of what I believe in, and why. I’ve learned about the surprises that can come from waking up one morning and discovering that a body part has suddenly regained its functionality. I’ve learned about the importance of perspective again, and again and again and how I will always be grateful for what I have. I’ve learned that positive thinking can be a conscious practice taking place underneath the surface of willful actions or it can come in the form of dreams, reminding the mind and body and soul of how great it feels to be able to walk.

More than anything though, I’ve learned about the intensity and magnitude of the power of intention and will. I’ve learned that hope is always alive as long as the intention for it is active and strong. I’ve learned that as difficult as it may be, it’s possible to listen to the “experts” and actively work to prove them wrong; to show an entire industry that’s based on suppressing my expectations and accepting the unacceptable, that there is another way. But it can only come if I truly believe in it and am willing to spend every last of drop of tears and energy and blood into pursuing it.

I spoke with someone recently who has had a lot of experience healing people who have suffered spinal cord injuries. She believes that the first year is purely a matter of dealing with the massive trauma that has occurred, that true healing doesn’t really begin until that trauma has died down and that happens in the second year and beyond.

I too accept this belief and I feel renewed and reenergized about my recovery. I know I will never forget this day again, that it’s an anniversary of sorts. I acknowledge this day now, and am ready to move forward, to keep my intention and will focused on my ultimate goals and to stay on my path to a full recovery.

A cut in the finger and the 2% rule

AB37 Comments

A lot of people have told me over the last few months that I have inspired them. While I am flattered, honored and grateful to have any kind of positive impact on others, I want to take a moment to acknowledge a couple of inspirational words given to me from two different friends today, just a few hours apart from each other.

I’ve been struggling a bit recently with the reality that the one year anniversary of my accident is fast approaching. In the medical world, this can be significant since some doctors and practitioners say that most or all the healing after a Spinal Cord Injury happens in the first year. While I have always refused to accept this, it does weigh on me a bit and add some unnecessary stress to my recovery. On another level, it’s surreal to think that almost an entire year, a full cycle of all 12 months will have gone by since this accident turned my life upside down and launched me into the world of SCI recovery. As I try to manage these emotions, avoid being distracted by them and translate them to my everyday recovery, I am truly inspired by the seemingly random words of support I received today.

First, a friend and former colleague of mine who I’ve not seen for a few years and who lives in Europe emailed me today saying that he’d been reading my blog and he’d noticed some of my doubt and frustrations in my recent writing. He told me that he had recently suffered a badly broken leg which kept him out of commission for a few weeks and prevented him from riding his bike, something I know he is very passionate about. He said that while he was lying in bed, unable to move for weeks, he was able to truly appreciate the extent of my situation and frustration.

Now, he has begun to ride his bike again despite the excruciating pain that comes with it and wanted to tell me that he thinks of me and my recovery every time he’s on his bike, especially since he describes his injury as merely “a cut in the finger” compared to what I’m dealing with. He tells me that with his cut in the finger injury, he doesn’t think he can be a role model for me, but still sends his support and says, “I KNOW YOU WILL SUCCEED AND WIN THIS FIGHT!” Well, the reality is that his words mean a lot to me. For someone who I’ve not seen in a long time to contact me out of the blue, share his experience, and impart his words of support means a lot, especially in this moment, on this day.

The second inspirational moment of the day came just a couple hours later. My friend was driving me back from my exercise therapy session and having seen how hard I was working and how far I’ve come these last few months, he told me what I’m dubbing “the 2% rule”. His words:

“Look man, I know it probably seems like an eternity for you that you’ve been in this wheelchair but think about it like this: say you live til you’re 100. Now think that even if you have to deal with a year or two in a wheelchair but you get back on your feet, it’s only about 2% of your life that you’ll have spent in that thing. In the big scheme of things, that’s really not that bad. Keep thinking of the activities and things you love to do and how that motivation will get you better. You’ll get through this thing soon enough.”

He didn’t make a big deal out of his words, he just said them in the matter of fact way of speaking he always has, as if what he had just said was the most obvious thing in the world. It gave me great perspective to hear this. I appreciated his reasoning and it brightened up my day. Although I’m not sure if I’ll live to 100, I think he’s right. If someone asked me if it was worth it to have a couple of really rough years of adversity and struggle in exchange for being able to do what I love to do and live a generally happier life, I would say it’s a no brainer. I’ve been really caught up in the struggles and challenges of my present frustrations, but I have to think of the bigger picture and believe that if 98% of my life is spent out of a wheelchair, then I can deal with an exceptionally hard 2%.

Today, it took a couple of seemingly unrelated things to happen in a short amount of time in order to snap me out of a funk and get me back on track. I’m grateful to these two friends and to everyone who continues to motivate me and support me. Who knows where will my inspiration will come from tomorrow…

Scared of stairs

AB24 Comments

One inch. That’s all it takes to stop me in my tracks, bring my wheelchair to an instant halt, and fling me forward and potentially face plant on the ground. In those first few weeks after my accident, while I was still in the hospital and learning how to maneuver myself in this rolling contraption that I hate so much, going over the smallest bump or gap would send shooting pain through my neck and spine. Just getting in and out of the elevator or the front door of the hospital to get some fresh air was an adventure as I could feel every jolt through my entire body and I would beg whoever was helping me to encounter these tiny bumps or rises as if I were off-roading over huge dirt mounds.

I’ve come a long way since then with my wheelchair as I no longer have much pain, but as I’ve gotten stronger and more able to go to new places, I’ve become more aware of where I walk…I mean….roll. Considering how much I already hate being shorter than everyone around me because I’m always sitting (see a previous post), it’s frustrating to  have to always keep my gaze at the ground and be on guard for any change in surface that will maintain my safety.

As a healthy and active person before my accident, I never thought twice about the entrances to homes, stores or restaurants. I lived on the top floor of an old San Francisco Victorian, with a bunch of stairs and no elevator. Many of my favorite restaurants and bars were situated at the top or bottom of a narrow flight of stairs. In a city where space is scarce and any kind of real estate costs a small fortune, there are few residences that are accommodating to someone in a wheelchair. As a result, to this day I can rarely visit my friends in their apartments or homes. “We’d love to have you over but we’re not sure if the stairs are doable” is something I hear frequently. To my friends’ credit, I have been able to bypass some seemingly sketchy entrances with some creative use of plywood ramps combined with some strong bodies pushing, pulling or even carrying me Cleopatra style.

I constantly fantasize about how monumental it will be for me to just make that first transition out of this wheelchair. Even if I have to use a walker or crutches, having the ability to go up a stair or two will open so many doors for me (literally and figuratively). I’m sick of always worrying about the smallest bump in the sidewalk or an elevated driveway or the unexpected stair and thinking how exactly my wheelchair and body would travel through the air if I were to encounter these foes without the utmost caution.

It is the biggest understatement when I say I can’t wait until I begin to get out of the wheelchair, which I refer to as my savior and worst enemy. I know I need it for now but I like to think that my hatred for it, combined with my love and driving desire to stand and walk, will lead to an imminent change in how I get around, and will lessen the feeling of being scared of stairs.

To a new year of new recovery

AB9 Comments

2012 was a bad year for me. While the first half of the year included a new job, a fantastic trip to Colombia, planning a move to a new and exciting house in SF, and some amazing hiking and camping trips with friends, everything came to a screeching halt on that fateful night in July when I suffered my Spinal Cord Injury. Paralysis is not a word I use very much to describe my condition because I hate the defeatist connotation of it, but I have to be honest about my situation after that accident: I was paralyzed, in more ways than one.

While my body was paralyzed from the chest down, so many other things had been paralyzed as well. I had been in peak physical condition before this accident and as a result of years of taking care of my body and consistently pushing myself athletically, I was in better shape as a 30-year-old than I was as a Division 1 college athlete, and sadly all of that was out the window. My new job at a renewable energy startup, and a potential springboard to a career in the field was suddenly stripped away from me. My summer plans of moving and setting up a new house, weekend camping trips in the mountains, and a vacation to Lebanon vanished right before my eyes. Everything that I knew, almost everything that made me who I am was turned on its head.

And now, almost six months after this horrendous incident, a new year is here. 2013 is the year that I walk. It’s a pretty significant task so it’s hard to call it a resolution, but the challenge of it means I will dedicate myself to it more than any resolution in the past. I will do all I can and work harder than I’ve worked to bring this to fruition. I’ve learned in the past few months about the incredible support of my community and I ask for your continued support in this next year, a year in which I plan to see all of you while standing on my own two feet. Happy new year to all.