Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone can do a little reflecting on 2022 as we move into 2023. I feel like the last three years were a sort of fever dream. Things got really weird when Covid hit the world stage and the years have blurred since then. I made a lot of changes and growth since then. I cut out the news from my life (mostly). I locked down with my little family. It took two years for me to actually get the viral infection and believe me it kicked my ass when I did. 2022 was my favorite year yet. There were tons of incredible milestones including marrying the woman of my dreams . I watched as businesses reopened and masks started to vanish. Gatherings finally started to feel normal. There were also hardships, like the loss of family members. Reminders about how fickle life is. Reminders of how important it is to make the most out of each day. 2022 was a year of philanthropy for me. A year of chasing goals and pursuing passions. A year of refining myself as a man and ...

Warning: proceed with caution, spoilers ahead. I will mark the movie spoilers with a red font if you want to skip them. Number 1: “Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot” This movie is on Amazon prime video and is an extremely well put together biopic following the life and trials of Portland cartoonist & quadriplegic John Callahan. John had a hard upbringing and never came to terms with it and self treated his anxiety with alcohol. This film follows him dealing with quadriplegia among many other obstacles after a drunk driving accident that left him paralyzed. The main focus on the film is the way that John fights his addiction to alcohol by joining AA. Sober & with a clear mind, John finds love in an old nurse he had and he begins to draw crude and satirical comics. It gets very mixed reviews but John ignores the critics and becomes a comic staple item in Portland, OR. A few different things really stick out for me from this movie. The first thing that I had to ask ...

  Ranger Battalion (2/75) I reached second battalion out in Washington state in September 2013. This was after basic training, infantry AIT, airborne school & RASP (Ranger Selection) I was a proud little Ranger. In battalion I got to deploy to Afghanistan and spend some time in Oman. I got to see Kuwait & Germany. I got to travel all over the United States for various training events. This was when I was running and gunning and having a great time in the army. I got to jump out of all sorts of military aircraft, fast rope out of rotor aircraft & train on more weapon systems than you can imagine. I loved all of the intense training (physical & mental) while in special operations. It was an incredible experience and I would not be the man that I am today without everything I learned. Unfortunately, I was involved in a car accident and I fractured a vertebrae in my neck causing nerve damage in my arm. Because of this I was removed from airborne status indefinitely and ...

Well I just had the best week of my life! A week full of love, faith and commitment. I got to marry the love of my life and what an experience it was! However, I will do a separate, more in depth post about the burning love that I have for my WIFE! This post will be about something different. A huge insecurity that I had going up to the wedding was based around something stupid. You probably notice that I rarely wear a suit or dress clothes. More than often you will find me in sweatpants and a hoodie or a baggy comfortable shirt. Adaptive jeans have been a great find & truthfully, even jeans are dressy for me now. Body dysmorphia is huge. Leading up to the wedding I was getting very anxious about how I was going to look in my suit. Sitting is a hard look to rock. I had a few different meetings set up at Men’s Wearhouse to get the perfect look to match my beautiful bride, but it was a gut punch realizing how difficult it was to get dressed up now. Nostalgia came and went once the su...

Why does finding accessible lodging need to be such a challenge? Hotel stays for me have been really hit or miss since my injury. Either the rooms are perfect or are an absolute nightmare. Most stays are somewhere in the middle. Thick carpet feels like quick sand for my front wheels. It’s exhausting to maneuver even a few feet when it feels like the floor is trying to pull me down. Transferring to & from the bed is a completely separate issue. Most hotels, cabins, motels etc. have beds with frames that go all the way to floor. These bed frames prevent my lift from getting me safely over the bed to drop me in. And if I wasn’t going to use my portable lift and transfer instead with a slide board, most hotel beds are taller than my wheelchair, meaning a sketchy uphill transfer.   The “tried and true” 2-man transfer works most times with friends and family but obviously not when it’s just Kass & I. Plus who wants to rely on other people to get you in and out? Don’t get me wrong...

Madigan Army Hospital, one of the oldest and largest hospital systems in the military sits proudly inside the gates of JBLM (Joint Base Lewis-McChord). This place evokes a lot of different emotions for me. I spent 4 and a half years on Fort Lewis in Washington, probably driving by Madigan ten thousand times. There were only three occasions where I spent any time in there though. Each occasion completely different and completely profound.  1.  In the military you tend to make really strong friendships when you’re going through “the suck” together. That was definitely the case for someone that I would consider my first close Army friend. Both of us 19, and very naïve but full of potential. We had just gone through Ranger Selection together and were at the current highs of our lives. We dawned our tan berets, and left Georgia for 2/75 in Washington. Then we got separated… and he started making dumb decisions. I had to step away from the friendship one night after he got wasted an...

We’ve all been there. Joining the sweatsuit mafia… especially during Covid lockdown, where pants are always optional.  Being paralyzed and sitting constantly causes a lot of strain on my skin. Keeping my bum healthy has been a main priority since day one in the hospital. I don’t talk about it often but I actually developed a pressure sore on my tailbone when I was hospitalized in 2017 because doctors and nurses had to choose how much I could move side to side while I was hooked up to the ventilator. When they told me that I had a wound developing I didn’t think much of it at the time because it seemed so minimal compared to… ya know, fighting paralysis, pneumonia, and everything in between. This “wound” actually became the bane of my existence for well over a year. So much so that I actually had a surgery done and went on bed rest for months. Skin breakdown is one of the biggest threats to anyone with a spinal cord injury. And what is constantly touching your skin?… Clothing! Befor...

The number 4 is such a lame number. Does this number have any meaning to you? As a teenager it represented the number of years I counted up to while in high school. As a soldier it represented my annual countdown on my Army contract. Now it represents my entire existence. I remember it like it was yesterday. The urology doctor leaning over my bed writing something on the patient whiteboard right behind my head. I couldn’t turn my head to see what he was writing. It wasn’t until I got up into my loaner wheelchair the next morning that I could read my updated information. “Bladder management: intermittent catheterization Q-4”. I asked my nurse what the Q4 meant. She told me that it means every 4 hours. Sweet, I have to pee on a schedule. Paralyzed organs suck! My bladder is resilient though and to be honest, I’m pretty proud of that stretchy little guy. Part of my care is maintaining my bladder. I’m at a point now where I can tell when Mother Nature is calling but that wasn’t always the ...

 There are two quotes that you hear constantly with Spinal Cord Injury… “It’s a marathon, not a sprint” & “no news is good news” Every September is my annual SCI check up at the VA Clinic. It’s just a day full of appointments to track any health changes. It starts with blood work & labs. A Uro-Dynamic Study of my bladder and kidney pressures. An ultrasound of the same organs. And re evaluation of the ASIA exam to check for sensation and functional changes. The end result of the day is usually, “congrats you’re still healthy and doing well! See ya next year!” Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy maintaining my health (which is no easy feat) but I’m trying to thrive! Kass and I just kind of expect to suffer through the day and head back to the house after the appointments. Well, something happened yesterday which was a pretty good confidence booster. After my reevaluation it was determined that I am functioning around the a C5 - C6 level which is almost an entire vertebrae below my di...

 Raise your hand if you’ve ever overheated…  Okay, now drink some water you hot mess. My motto in the Army on the weekends was always “hydrate with beer”. Well, it’s time to hold myself accountable… last Sunday I was almost a heat casualty. I should know better. I was trained to recognize the signs of heat exhaustion. That judgment call was tough to make after a few beers in the Samuel Adams Deck at Fenway Park. Last Sunday, Kass and I met a few friends in Boston for a Red Sox game. It was a 1PM game and the handicap seating in the upper deck was an awesome view of the field. On the drive there I realized that I was ill prepared for a day of drinking but ignored the fact that I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink up until that point. I started feeling my blood pressure drop on the drive to Boston which is fairly common when you’re in a wheelchair. Lack of muscle tone makes it harder for blood to circulate. I worked through that fine but I quickly realized that heat exhaustion ...

I feel like every month there is a new hashtag on social media. A new calendar of dedicated themes. One that is currently going around in the disability community is #disabilitypridemonth . Seems strange to me, especially following huge celebrations & displays like pride month for the LGBTQ community. I’ll admit that I think you should rock the shit out of whatever your situation is but disability pride is an interesting one. Am I proud to be a quadriplegic? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t wish this disability on my worst enemy. That doesn’t mean that I don’t carry myself with pride in all aspects of life. I try to own quadriplegia & make the most out of every day.  I am extremely proud, however, to represent things inside of the disability community. Artwork, creative writing, motivation, gaming, being a good friend; son, uncle, human being, whatever. Those are things that I’m proud of. But paralysis specifically? That’s a big nope. I get anxious and embarrassed now. Stressed o...

  Life Has Been Rolling  & it is a beautiful thing. I know that it’s been a little while since I’ve updated my Life Keeps Rolling community inside the actual blog website. Most of my content has come in the form of Instagram posts and I’ve ventured away from Facebook a bit. I’ve always gotten way fewer interactions there anyway. I actually went through a bit of a rebranding which was a lot of fun. I’ve found my passion in art and it has been incredible. I opened up my art account “Limp Wrist Art” and have been enjoying running my merchandise shop as well as creating art for others. I truly get a lot of joy out of making commissions and I’ve been using the money raised for little philanthropy projects. Check out my links but more specifically my art account for random illustrations! I try to post something daily!  As far as life goes, this year has been huge! During the peak of COVID, Kass and I started the hunt for our forever home and we found it in Litchfield NH. Ma...

I wish that I could say that this post has nothing to do with the ever so present Coronavirus but unfortunately it does. More specifically, I want to write about my experiences on a ventilator. If we thought about each ventilator as a human life and not some low balled statistic we hear almost daily on the news then maybe more people would take this pandemic seriously. If there is one thing that I can attest to, it is that being on a vent is an absolute nightmare. I feel like when people hear about strangers getting the coronavirus and being placed on a ventilator or respirator to survive, they don’t really understand what that whole situation looks like. It’s a pretty morbid thought process but most people assume things like this are a survival of the fittest scenario. You hear all about the nursing homes being ravished, but I think people need to understand the true horror of what can happen with a respiratory complication.  I was 23 years old. I could run half marathons and swim...

Driving Resources:  https://liferollson365.blogspot.com/p/sci-resources.html There’s nothing that quite compares to having one hand on the steering wheel and one hand out the window with the music blaring and a cool cross breeze flowing through a vehicle. Or weaving around backroads on your motorcycle taking in all of the sights and smells while twisting the throttle and hearing the roar of your exhaust pipes echo around. The road was really where I found myself. I spent countless hours cruising without a destination on my Harley or in my truck. I also prided myself in maintaining them both even though one was usually broken down at any given time. I considered myself a wanderer and an explorer. So you can imagine that the prospect of never operating a vehicle on my own again was a pretty hard blow.  I still remember my first time being in a vehicle after my injury. I was still in patient at the hospital and I was having some inflammation around one of my molars. That meant a ...

It’s not really a secret that winter and I have never really been best friends. Probably a bit of a shock since I grew up in NH where you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a few annual snow storms and a freezing winter season. I was too clumsy for skiing and snowboarding so I stuck to basketball and swimming for winter sports. Mostly to keep indoors, but regardless I’ve generally disliked being cold.   My disdain for the cold has definitely amplified since becoming paralyzed. I’ve hit on temperature regulation in past blog posts but in case you’re new to my blog, a fairly common secondary condition to having a spinal cord injury is difficulty in temperature regulation. My body can no longer sweat or shiver and my blood pressure runs much lower now so I naturally feel cold, especially in my extremities. On top of that, nerve pain and AD can often be mistaken for a cold feeling. If something is aggravating a part of my body that I can’t feel, then my body has a natural response of go...