Am I speaking about death here? No, Im talking about life after a spinal cord injury. Why did I phrase the title of this write-up as I did? Simply because for numerous people who suffer a spinal cord injury, their 1st thoughts right after getting informed of paralysis, or wheelchairs, or a severed spinal cord, causing the patient to by no means be capable to stroll yet again, is indeed death. Why did I even live?
I know that was one of my earliest thoughts following I was capable to recognize what was going on. Once I regained consciousness from my three days of coma, by awakening to a breathing tube being pulled from my throat, I was advised that I had an accident.
Possibly a few hours later, its difficult to recall specifically, I began to comprehend the great distress in the medical doctors face and voice as he communicated to me about how my spine was broken in three locations and the bone fragments had severed my spinal cord, and as an outcome I would in no way be capable to walk once more. Perhaps it was at that time that I first wished myself dead.
Now its twenty-two years later. Ive had twenty-two years of utilizing a wheelchair for mobility. Ive had twenty-two years of Afterlife. My spinal cord is still severed. I nonetheless have paralysis from chest-level down (T-four to be precise). I have numerous wheelchairs a basketball wheelchair, a tennis wheelchair, an everyday wheelchair. Over the years Ive probably had close to ten distinct wheelchairs. All of the chairs, all of the catheters, all of the baclofen, all of the leg bags and tubes, all of the paralysis paraphernalia thanks to a single moment in time of loosing handle of my vehicle, hitting a guardrail, tree, and residence, snapping my spine in 3 places and injuring my spinal cord.
Wouldnt it have been much better if I just didnt have this sort of following life and experienced the bog finale afterlife as an alternative? Well, I cant answer that for sure since I have not been able to evaluate the two side by side. But I can tell you that you can have a life and a rather rewarding and fulfilling life, if you so select, even immediately after a spinal cord injury.
Michael E. Hylton, TheWheeledWorld.org, June, 2006
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