Wheel World News Issue 42 March | Page 12

so positive and unaffected by my condition, I make the best of what I can. That’s the only thing you can do in a situation like mine: surround yourself with supportive friends and a loving family, and nothing else matters.

Some advice for those who are newly injured include:

-Get a bladder and bowel routine down, try to do as much as you can yourself without help. Accidents happen still, even after four and a half years with me.

-If possible, learn how to do pressure relief on your own, and use a manual chair as often as possible. Obviously skin integrity is most important, but try working up some resistance so your skin isn’t always super susceptible to sores (again, be very cautious when doing this)

-Tackle each day as its own challenge. Rehab/school/family is hard to balance when you try to plan out everything in advance.

-It’s perfectly fine to have sad days. I’ve had days where I cry for hours on end because I miss my old life. But understand that you are still you, and you have one life to live, so don’t let something as small as taking the elevator instead of stairs make you sad. It’s a part of life now, and it’s totally okay to be upset about it as long as you actively work on improving.

-Find a new (or previous) hobby that you can do just as much or just as well as before the injury. I rediscovered mine in video games about two years after my injury, even with complete paralysis in my fingers.

-Every new task takes time to learn. You have to be patient with yourself.

My day to day activities changed pretty drastically when I got back to school my senior year. I no longer did swim or soccer (obviously) so I would go to school, have class my first two periods and then have a break period and lunch, then to my last two classes. I would go home an hour early (just because I didn’t need that extra class to graduate) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, where I would watch soccer with my aunts and then take a little nap. On MWF, my grandpa picked me up from school directly and took me to therapy where I would do PT and OT for about an hour each, then go home for another post-therapy nap. I found I was very tired after school so taking a quick little nap always helped. And as long as my routine was the same every day or every other day, my mind was occupied enough to not think about my new condition.

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