Am I talking about death here? No, Im talking about life after a spinal cord injury. Why did I phrase the title of this article as I did? Because for many people who suffer a spinal cord injury, their first thoughts after being informed of paralysis, or wheelchairs, or a severed spinal cord, causing the patient to never be able to walk again, is indeed death. Why did I even live?
I know that was one of my earliest thoughts after I was able to understand what was going on. Once I regained consciousness from my three days of coma, by awakening to a breathing tube being pulled from my throat, I was advised that I had an accident.
Maybe a few hours later, its hard to recall exactly, I began to comprehend the great distress in the doctors face and voice as he communicated to me about how my spine was broken in three places and the bone fragments had severed my spinal cord, and as a result I would never be able to walk again. Maybe it was at that time that I first wished myself dead.
Now its twenty-two years later. Ive had twenty-two years of using a wheelchair for mobility. Ive had twenty-two years of Afterlife. My spinal cord is still severed. I still have...