- In January 2020, Conner, my boyfriend,
and I were in Mexico,
preparing to go to our friend's wedding,
and we were just swimming in the ocean.
It was just the middle of the day, and a big wave came,
and I dove under it, and Conner allowed it
to take him toward the shore a little bit,
and it tumbled him down, pushed him underwater,
and he says that he felt and could hear his neck break.
Do you want a pillow behind you.
- Nah, that's alright. Thanks.
The first doctor that I saw before --
you know, before I had surgery --
It was just, like, first X-rays.
His prognosis was that I would be paralyzed
from the shoulders down.
You know, I wouldn't be able to move
anything beneath my shoulders.
Being able to even have the amount of function
that I have now, I'm just like --
I'm just so thankful for. - Okay.
From the moment that he got injured all the way through now,
I've been his sole caregiver.
And you like them, right? - Totally, yeah.
- They make you feel good? - They're great.
I was working --
talking with some jewelers, trying to get a ring.
We were going on this trip,
and I was gonna come back and seal the deal.
- Your favorite pamper of the day.
- I'm a big heart. - Yeah.
We do the exact same thing every day, pretty much.
We wake up.
I immediately have to help him use the bathroom, so pee.
And then from there, we have breakfast.
We go into our morning routine of his bowel program.
So we transfer to the shower chair, go into the bathroom.
I help him a little bit, and then for about
the next hour, hour and a half,
there are multiple times that I just need to help him.
The state is only able to pay me for 40 hours a week
of Conner's care,
which is great, but it is just at minimum wage.
It's just not accurate for the care
that Conner needs as a high-level quadriplegic.
Moma.
I can't believe that they actually
have the audacity to say that,
because it's expected of a spouse
to care for their husband or wife,
that the hours they'll paid for the care
that they are providing is going to be automatically less
than that person would receive from somebody else.
That just seems totally ridiculous to me.
I was a ballet dancer with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet
for 10 years.
Taking all I knew from ballet about physicality and movement
really helped me better help Conner,
especially in the ways that Conner and I go through the day.
It extremely hard on my body.
Are you joking? This is -- This is not normal.
- Around my legs.
Jane does pretty much everything for me.
As much as I try to be as independent as possible
and I'm, you know, working towards it, it is so slow.
- One, two, three. Good.
- Okay.
One, two, three.
Good. Oof!
Feel good? - Yeah.
It's hard.
Excuse me, dog.
It's been over a year of us moving through life like this.
It's just not sustainable for me to do this every single day
in the way that I have been.
Nice.
I'm about to turn 30, and it has become a little daunting for me
because it's, you know --
it is, like, a turning point, naturally.
- One, two, three.
- It's made me really upset
because I do want to be married and have a family.
Like, something we were so close to has now been pushed
to the side a little bit or just further down the road.
Physically and financially, it's not feasible for us
to get married as we thought we would so soon.
- Hey, baby. - Hi, mom.
- How are you? - Good.
Something that has been difficult this year
is the necessity to care for his mental state
and psychological state and emotional state,
and then additionally, my own.
It's so taxing that we often
don't get to the things in our relationship
that we would be talking about as we used to.
Takes a strain on your relationship, for sure.
- To be honest, I really had no idea
caregiving and marriage were so interconnected.
Did I get you?
It feels as though we're being punished for pursing love.
Thank you for dinner, baby. - You're welcome.
You want sauce. - Oh.