[_paralyzed_]

Well, there isn't a whole lot to it. It happened on August 13th 2001, at about 1pm. A bright and warm summer day. I was sober as a judge.

I was heading to my parents house, so it was a very comfortable road for me. I dropped the hammer on my little ricer and was doing about 90mph up a large hill. On that same hill was an old farm semi pulling a fully loaded grain trailer, dropping gears and only going about 10mph. I nailed the back of his trailer. He only stopped because he thought he "blew a tire or something"

That day is gone from my memory. I've peiced as much together as I just told you from people that saw me that day and the accident report. I can only imagine I was fiddling with the radio. Like they say, most accidents occur close to home, where you are comfortable and drop your guard.

Now, the crazy part is that I never injured my spine. I was airlifted to the nearest trauma center, and actually was helped to WALK to the helicopter. But not wearing a seatbelt and slamming into the steering wheel made my heart slosh around in my chest, and my aorta was ripped from my heart. During the ensuing heart surgery no oxygen flowed to my spine, and it was oxygen deprivation that caused my paralysis.

I was told that the survival rate of an aortic dissection is less than 3% nationwide.

They knew ther was like a 30% chance that the heart surgery would cause paralysis, but it was that or die.

So I was paralyzed from the chest down as I am today, but 3 days after the heart surgery I was awake and had full normal use of my arms. I fed myself, I signed things, I was ready to get on with life. Then my brain started to swell, and I slowly lost my arm movement. By day 5 after the accident I was completely paralyzed from the neck down, hooked to breathing machines and a feeding tube was placed in my stomach. Nobody could say if I'd ever get any better.

For the next 4 months I was completely paralyzed. At this point the brain swelling had gone down, and a doctor asked me if I could move my fingers. I knew I couldn't, so I mouthed NO! to him and sent him out of my room.

The next day my mom asked me, "did you even try to move your fingers?". The answer was no. So I tried and miraculously I could move them a little bit. From there it was 6 months in a rehab hospital regaining use of my hands and arms, and then 11 months in a rehab center.

To this day I have no feeling in my hands (I can't reach in a bag of chips and grab one, I need to be able to see it) and have a weak upper body, but compared to a lot of people I am very fortunate to have the arm and hand use that I have. I am classified as a c-5 quadriplegic. I am completely dead from the nipples down.

(quadriplegic does not mean full paralysis, rather if you split the body into four quadrants all four of those quadrants have been affected by my particular paralysis, just not completely on my upper half)

So, here I am today 8 1/2 years out and I'm doing okay. I've spent most of the last 2 1/2 years on bedrest because of pressure sores, but I am alive. I just got a new wheelchair with a custom built seat that is supposed to help alleviate the pressure sores, so I'm hopeful to get up and about and live as much life as is possible.

The custom back was over $6,000 and the wheelchair was over $23,000. Say what you will about the U.S. government and taxes, without either I'd be rotting away in a corner.

That's a summary of the last 8 1/2 years of my life. Any questions?