Ryan – What’s important for family and friends to understand?

That person is exactly the same as they used to be. I mean they just are and you—having a spinal cord injury, I don’t want to be treated any differently than anybody else does. I mean I want to talk and have a conversation just like everybody else does. One of my biggest pet peeves is when somebody asks me if I need help with something. Even though they’re doing it out of courtesy, I’d just rather ask for help. And the same thing when you might mess something up, you don’t want people to keep asking you if you’re okay. Like if you fall, “are you okay?” And you’re like, “look, if you tripped and you fell over, you don’t want people to be asking you an hour later, ‘are you okay?’ when you tripped and really took a fall there. Yeah, I’m embarrassed, I fell down, don’t ask me about it again.” But you know, I mean that’s just it, you just want to be treated the same as everyone else, you might need some gloves every now and then, you know the kind of people that take it easy on you. But I enjoy sitting, having a conversation with people, and if I have to look up, that’s the only thing that stinks, my neck starts to hurt, but other than that it’s fun.