My article in today's Times is in support of the Spinal Injuries Association, one of the newspaper's nominated charities for Christmas.
I will put a link here, but due to the online content no longer being free to access, you will need to be a subscriber to read it.
In summary, I wrote about the important role of the SIA's peer support worker who came to see me when I first got to The National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville.
There is a tacit understanding between people with spinal cord injury which is difficult to put into words, just as it is difficult to put into words the feeling of having a spinal cord injury, and facing a life with paralysis (I should know. I have made a career of it, after all).
We are a funny lot. People with SCI come from a wide range of backgrounds and life experience. We have widely different levels of paralysis with widely different implications on health and independence. We are parents, siblings, children, lovers, pensioners. Some of us are bloody minded, some of us are angry, many of us are happy, many of us are supportive, a few of us are pretty unpleasant. Just like everyone else. That's the point. We are everyone else.
But what we all share is a common experience. Even though there difference between a C4 and an L5 spinal cord injury is immense, it is still closer than the difference between SCI and non-SCI. While we aren't all able to offer support to each other, many of us are. Just like everyone else.
I will put a link here, but due to the online content no longer being free to access, you will need to be a subscriber to read it.
In summary, I wrote about the important role of the SIA's peer support worker who came to see me when I first got to The National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville.
There is a tacit understanding between people with spinal cord injury which is difficult to put into words, just as it is difficult to put into words the feeling of having a spinal cord injury, and facing a life with paralysis (I should know. I have made a career of it, after all).
We are a funny lot. People with SCI come from a wide range of backgrounds and life experience. We have widely different levels of paralysis with widely different implications on health and independence. We are parents, siblings, children, lovers, pensioners. Some of us are bloody minded, some of us are angry, many of us are happy, many of us are supportive, a few of us are pretty unpleasant. Just like everyone else. That's the point. We are everyone else.
But what we all share is a common experience. Even though there difference between a C4 and an L5 spinal cord injury is immense, it is still closer than the difference between SCI and non-SCI. While we aren't all able to offer support to each other, many of us are. Just like everyone else.
(Image © David Bebber for The Times)
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