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What was the hardest part of the first days in the hospital?

What was the hardest part of the first days in the hospital?

More Videos by James Shepherd
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Sitting in a hospital bed in traction on a ventilator unable to talk, and realizing as the days ticked off that it wouldn’t get any better as fast as I thought it should. And then, the realization that it wasn’t going to get as good as I wanted a... Show More

Sitting in a hospital bed in traction on a ventilator unable to talk, and realizing as the days ticked off that it wouldn’t get any better as fast as I thought it should. And then, the realization that it wasn’t going to get as good as I wanted as fast as I wanted it and maybe never as good as I wanted. I think the first talks of “you’re going to rehabilitation,” which came 2 to 3 months in, my thought was “rehabilitation, how are they going to fix me?” And then you had to process the “yeah, they’re not going to fix me; they’re going to teach me to work with what I have.”

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What was the hardest part of the first days in the hospital?

James Shepherd

Injured in 1973 at age 24, quadriplegic
More Videos by James
Transcriptadd

Sitting in a hospital bed in traction on a ventilator unable to talk, and realizing as the days ticked off that it wouldn’t get any better as fast as I thought it should. And then, the realization that it wasn’t going to get as good as I wanted as fast as I wanted it and maybe never as good as I wanted. I think the first talks of “you’re going to rehabilitation,” which came 2 to 3 months in, my thought was “rehabilitation, how are they going to fix me?” And then you had to process the “yeah, they’re not going to fix me; they’re going to teach me to work with what I have.”

What was the hardest part of the first days in the hospital?
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