What’s the best advice you have for someone with a new spinal cord injury?

The fact that patients become their primary advocates, so one of the things we want patients to know, and their families, is that they need to know as much about their condition as possible, and be able to ask questions as they go out into the community. They need to educate others about their spinal cord injury, including sometimes physicians in the community who may not be aware of what’s involved in caring for a spinal cord patient. So being the educated consumer is a good thing that we try to get outpatients and families as well to be aware of.

Don’t be afraid to explore; there’s not one road for everybody. I see people who go back to pretty much their old life, which is great. There are other people who decide that the lifestyle they had—the behavior they exhibited is what got them paralyzed—they build a new life that is better after injury. A kind of post-traumatic growth. Talk to other people, learn from your peers, go online like you are now and learn from what’s available out there. Don’t accept limitations. We have patients who’ve been nominated for Nobel Prizes, patients who are in business, patients who operate a profession from their bed because they’re tied to a ventilator. Many, many, many things are possible, don’t give up.

Spinal cord injury is a very traumatic experience not just for the patient, but for the family. It is a life-changing incident and to remember that any staff that you are with-from a physical therapist, to a nurse, to a peer counselor to case manager-we're on your side. We are going to work our hardest to make sure that you are as strong, and functional, and flexible and as healthy as you can possibly be. We are going to work with you; we are going to work with your family. And if that means you can get up and walk out of the rehab hospital, we are thrilled. If that means at this point in time perhaps you go home on a ventilator and you're going to be working on instruction of a second person, we are thrilled if you are independent with instruction of a second person. Our whole mission is to help you to achieve the goals that you want to achieve, and that's what we're all working toward, every single day.

One thing that I could tell them what is ahead of them: that there is a new life; it is a new normal, if you will. What is normal? Well I’m not. But I think if they’re not looking to go back to where they were, but to go around or over that and reach a new plateau. A place where they can have a wonderful quality of life and make a difference.

It’s about living, and we do all these health behaviors—you’re supposed to do the cathing, and the pressure-release, and the turning in bed because you want to have a quality of life, and so it’s about your life. And everything else is figuring out what’s going to allow you to optimize those possibilities.

Life doesn’t end after a spinal cord injury; you have to take life and look at it a bit differently, and that’s what the healthcare team is there to support you in doing.