Life before the accident was exciting and fast paced. Always pushing myself to achieve new goals was a big part of my life. I had an extremely strong work ethic which had been engrained into me from a young age, this made me particularly self-critical and at times you could say I was maybe a little too hard on myself. That is what drove me to keep achieving my goals and reaching the next step each time.
Everyone was always saying that I was burning the candle at both ends, but did I believe or listen to them, no. I suppose I was so engrossed in where I was at, and what needed doing, that I took for granted what people would say to me. My whole world came crashing to a halt when I had the accident. My brother would always say to me to put on my seatbelt, but did I listen, no. If I wasn’t in a rush to get to the next place, then I would never have been banned from driving. Why is there always such an urgency to reach the next destination or the next goal?
It took me a very long time to be at peace with my situation/condition and inability to stand on my own two feet. It was constant, it was something that I would begin to beat myself up about every single day. Not knowing how to repair the cracks in my life was a really difficult thing I had to deal with, especially when all I knew how to do was to fix things and rebuild them. This was going to be the start of my journey, learning how to adapt and grow into my new settings.
Learning how to rebuild myself was the fundamental building block which still stands today as one of the most prominent slogans that we use for our charity Quad-Rebuild, this is ‘REBUILDING YOU FROM THE GROUND UP’. Little did I know back then how important that slogan would turn out to be. Being able to help other people, helped me, guided me and changed my life for the better.
Through this blog and my video posts on social media, this is where I am going to tell part of my story, in the hope that it changes other people’s lives that have been affected by a catastrophic spinal cord injury.
