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| A picture my brother captured during the interview http://vimeo.com/117846035 |
First off, I want to give credit where it's deserved. And this group of guys deserve every bit of credit I can give. This group was filming a documentary called Endless Abilities and during their trip out to theWest Coast they stopped at Craig Hospital during my first few months stay there in Denver. They started on the East coast and made pit stops across the country and visited different amputees, SCI and others with disabilities. Throughout their journey they filmed their encounters and adventures and when they came to Craig Hospital we sat down for an interview.
There are still details that I don't open up about; I don't think I will ever openly discuss them publicly. But I will say that accidents happen, and that's exactly why they are called accidents. In Las Vegas ICU my family was told that what they typically see in Las Vegas ICU aren't "accidents" - they are "lifestyle choices" - but that my accident truly was an "accident". For months and months after my accident it was difficult for me to talk about the specifics of "what happened" because of the technicalities and multiple parties involved. But after months of struggling with it, I came to know that the responsibility was not on one person. It was such a burden lifted off of me when I was able to accept that and take part of the blame off of myself. It took many months to get there though, and the emotions and mental aspects of the accident were just as difficult to deal with as the physical aspects of paralysis. Not that you should watch the video for those reasons, I was just almost in shock of how openly I discussed it all because during the first few months that was a rare occurrence.
This footage is during my inpatient stay when Endless Abilities visited, back in April 2012. It was really cool to see the video and to look back and see how far I've really come, and this is a month or so into my recovery. I remember that because I'm out of the big TLSO brace and in the smaller jewett brace, That first month or so in my "turtle shell" was the worst, they told me I could take the brace home and use it for target practice, I wish I'd kept it so I could have done so.
There area a few things that I noticed looking back. My voice is a bit raspy from the ventilator, and my eyes are a bit crazy- I was still on pain medicine. Myy shoes aren't matching - and it wasn't because I just forget that morning. My feet were so extremely swollen that I had to wear my dad's shoe on one foot and my mom's on the other. I also noticed that my hand was no longer wrapped, which helps me gear how far along in the recovery process.Next to me while interviewing was my brace, I'm sure I was only allowed to take it off because I was sitting in place. And I'm probably the only one to notice the scar under my right eye, I came so close the red rock the night of my accident that my face was scrapped up by the rock. I'm just barely beginning to scrape the surface of the "endless abilities" that I have.
Between interviews with USU Alumni, KSL and Deseret News there's a few links I want to include. During one interview I was asked what advice I would give to other and my response was this:
"I would say take your time, enjoy life. I definitely enjoyed life, but at a very, very fast pace. Take that semester off to explore another culture, take that time to make life-long friendships and take new opportunities. But when I say take your time, I’m not saying waste time or be lazy; I’m saying get out there and explore what you’re passionate about. College flies by and there’s no other time in life like it. As I was saying earlier you’ll get full-time jobs and move on with life eventually, so take advantage of every moment and explore you true passions and interests. It’s okay to not follow that “four-year plan”. And be intentional with your time, be intentional with the people you spend your time with and what you spend your time doing."
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