What’s the most common misconception about life after a spinal cord injury? - Kristine Cichowski, MS

I think the most common misconception is that they're not going to be able to do the majority of things they did in life, and, or, to be able to go on a have a productive life. And, that's very different from what we've discovered with people with spinal cord injury, the people that I've known—and there's hundreds and thousands of them that have crossed my path and my career—have really shown that they go about doing whatever they want to do. There's so many inventive ways with adaptive equipment, or possibly there's an activity that they're involved in that requires no change at all, it's just a new mindset. So I think, you know, you have to be open to these new possibilities, and that is the biggest misconception because people only go by what they know, or don't know. And unless they've actually had the opportunity to see people succeed in life and go on and live a very fulfilling life with a spinal cord injury, their immediate reaction would be, "Life is over." It's really not, life's beginning.