It was a beautiful, sunny day, great driving conditions.
I was going, you know, 75, 80
and then I spilt my drink in my center console
and not even thinking about it,
I leaned over to my glove compartment and opened it to get a napkin
and when I leaned, my left hand pulled the steering wheel and I went off of the road
and when I looked back up, I was on the grass median going straight for trees
and there was just no time to stop.
So I ended up hitting the trees.
I had my seatbelt on and everything like that, but my airbag did not deploy.
They ended up MedFlighting me to a hospital in South Carolina
and I was there for almost two months in ICU.
In the acute care setting, when I would ask,
would I be able to do this, would I be able to do that,
no one knew how to answer. They just didn't have the experience.
Finally, I was stable enough to transfer back to a hospital
in Johnson City, Tennessee, where I was living for college.
And from there, an access case manager named Susan Lawhorn
from Shepherd came to see me
and we started talking about Shepherd and different options
and that's when we really got interested in Shepherd and Shepherd only
for my rehabilitation.
My first day was an introduction to my team,
an introduction to physical therapists, occupational therapists,
and an introduction to the rec therapy team.
And they talked to me a little bit about what each program consisted of,
so I got a good idea of what I was going to be doing for the duration.
They also, within the first few days, gave me a schedule
of what my therapy would be
so I knew every day at 8 a.m. what my day would start with
and what my day would end with.
The rec therapy did a lot for me
just getting back out into the community, interacting with other people.
Actually, the first time they ever took me out of the hospital
we just went up the hill to Chick-fil-A.
And all they said was, "we're going to go get a milkshake."
So I was like, "OK, yeah. If that's therapy, then I'll go get a milkshake."
I thought that sounded great.
Little did I know, they were going to have me push
all the way up what they call Cardiac Hill in like 90-degree Atlanta summer.
So about halfway up that hill, I decided a milkshake was not worth it.
I finally got to the top of the hill and got to the Chick-fil-A and thought,
OK, I made it to the top of the hill. I'm here, it's done.
And so we're at the door to Chick-fil-A
and I'm just kind of looking at the rec therapists like,
are you going to get the door, or...?
I mean even something so simple was— it could be embarrassing
but I had a rec therapist who was joking with me the whole time.
I had my mom who was laughing with me the entire time.
And it gave me an opportunity to laugh at the things that you can laugh at
and it's just a fun memory.
The way that Shepherd really transformed my opinion
on what a life with a spinal cord injury could be
and how positive it could be was through peer support.
The first peer support mentor that I had was a beautiful woman
who had been in a chair since she was 12,
and she came in and she talked to me about dating and her job
and how she lived alone in this beautiful house with these two dogs
and seeing someone still confident, still beautiful, still active in a chair,
it showed me that I could be that as well, and that's when my motivation turned
from rehabilitation of walking to a rehabilitation of just my full self,
being able to live this life and sit down, and know that it'll be okay.