There is currently a movement in the spinal cord injury community that is being spearheaded by members of the Christopher Reeve foundation called #seeus. It is a movement to promote disability awareness and body positivity for wheelchair users. To show the person and not the wheelchair or handicap. I love the message and the community of it. However, I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with this and here’s why. The reason that I am neutral is because whether or not I want my disability to define me, it always will. Self love is extremely important and embracing my reality is paramount in being proud of who I am. I have worked so hard to accept the fact that I am paralyzed and I think it is unfair to expect someone to ignore that. I will never expect someone to see the fit 25 year old in the chair and not wonder how or why. The only thing that I don’t want from anyone or anything is sympathy. Don’t treat me differently because, well, I’m not different. Someone pretending that I’m not ...

Life is truly a mystery. It has it’s ups and downs and highs and lows. Some believe it is predestined and some believe in karma. If you give good then you should get good back. All that I know for sure is that life can change in the blink of an eye. I went from walking, talking and breathing with my grand scheme of a simple life and an honest living to being unemployed while making a living from disability funds from my wheelchair. I went from crawling under my truck to change my oil and cranking on my Harley to keep that death-trap rolling to learning how to put on a splint and feed myself. In a fraction of a second, everything that I had done in 23 short years of living went up in smoke and with it went most of my ambitions. What do I do now? A quote comes to mind “Calm seas never made good sailors”.  I have experienced more in these two years since my injury than I have in my prior 23 years. My injury has opened up my mind in so many different ways. I won’t compare my injury to ...

5 Stages of Grief https://www.washington.edu/counseling/2020/06/08/the-stages-of-grief-accepting-the-unacceptable/ denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance  First I want to express that everyone grieves differently. The order for the stages of grief can be moved around depending on how that person grieves a loss. Going through any sort of loss whether it’s small or large shouldn’t matter. If you find yourself grieving then you should help work yourself through the stages of grief. Luckily for me I had a huge support system and incredible therapist who I still work with. She helped me navigate my stages of grief and live a normal life again after my injury. Writing out where I was at mentally in my process of grieving was extremely therapeutic for me and looking back at the technical stages of grief, it is easy to see which stage I was in at certain points of my hospital stay. For me,  I was grieving the loss of the my old self .   Denial - From the ...

Happy Friday everyone! I have to admit that the idea of doing a Fam Friday post intimidates the heck out of me. I avoid stirring up old emotions as much as I can because it can be a dangerous hole to fall into. That being said, after seeing how therapeutic this blog is for Joshua, I think I can handle one little post 😉   I’m assuming most readers are familiar with our story. Joshua and I crushed long distance for 2 years on opposite sides of the country. We made the most of every phone call, face time and text message. We lived for every visit we had, whether that was in NH with family or him spoiling me on adventures and nonstop dates in Washington. One month before he was supposed to come home to me, I got news that sent our lives into a bazillion different directions. The night of February 11, 2017 was the most horrifying, heart-wrenching, traumatizing night of my life. The time between finding out Josh was shot and in critical condition to actually landing at SEATAC the...

I remember back to playing baseball and being introduced to using wooden bats. All that I had known up to playing in my first wooden bat league was using big and light composite or aluminum bats. My coach showed us the “sweet spot” on the lumber. Right in the center of the barrel of the bat going with the grain. Up to that point, I had never broken a baseball bat before, but I quickly learned what that felt like. If the ball hits off the end of the bat, you start hitting foul balls or dinky ground-outs. If a fastball jams you up and it hits near your hands, the ringing in your hands hurts like a bitch. But nothing beats the sound and feeling of launching a ball off of the sweet spot.  I like to think of life as the pitcher and me as the batter. Life is throwing different pitches at me trying to get me to hit above or below the sweet spot or strike out. I am just up at the plate constantly trying to find that homerun spot without breaking the bat.  In one of my first blog posts...

Quick anatomy lesson: the brain talks to the spine which talks to the nerves which talk to the muscles. If there is a disruption in any of these (AKA a bullet) then the muscles don’t work. So here is where I’m at. I am a C-4 quadriplegic meaning that all four of my limbs have been impacted by my spinal cord injury. Luckily I still have some upper body function in my shoulders and biceps so with practice, I can get by.  One of the first things that I noticed in the hospital was that my reflexes were WAY off. This was my first annoyance. I would have my family throw empty water bottles and foam balls at me so I could practice catching things as a form of therapy. I noticed that when the ball came my way my brain would tell my body to catch it and the ball would just hit me and fall to the ground... and then my arms would move. It’s like there was a two second delay between my limbs and my body. “Hand eye baby, hand eye”. It was always strange when I would have something on my lap and...

Today you get to watch me attempt to address my list of frustrations and annoyances through humor. First I will start with strangers and the things that they do. Next week will be about my physical changes and annoyances so stay tuned.  I’ll admit that I would probably be guilty of some of the things I am about to list if I wasn’t currently living with paralysis. Ignorance is bliss so sorry ahead of time if I am about to ruin your bliss by bringing attention to the ignorance. Wheelchair etiquette. Never assume that because someone is in a wheelchair that they cannot talk. I try to pride myself in looking as “normal” as I can from my seat-on-wheels but that somehow doesn’t stop the occasional waiter from talking slowly to me. Ignoring me and going straight to asking whoever I’m eating with what my order will be is really cool too. This is usually the point where the tip goes “bye-bye” because guess who’s paying... wheelz mcgee over here. I try to give people the benefit of the...

How often do you just stop and take life in? It can get pretty crazy. People passing people. Work, school, gym, family. Chaos. I fell into the cycle and I still find myself stuck there sometimes. It wasn’t until my life got to it’s craziest that I realized the importance of taking everything in. It wasn’t until I lost the use of my hands that I realized how much we use them. It wasn’t until I lost the strength in my diagram that I realized how incredible a deep, chest expanding, lung opening breath felt after going on a long run. It wasn’t until I lost strength in my vocal cords that I realized how fulfilling it felt to nail a high note in my truck while blasting my music driving to work. The ability to jump right out of bed and start my day. The feeling of grass on my bare feet or sand between my toes. The simplicity of dropping a gear and ripping through a turn on my motorcycle. What it feels like to have nice hot shower water hit your whole body. The need to not have to worry about ...

Hello  everyone!  I am Josh's mom, Maria and I  will be sharing my perspective on how Josh's injury has affected my life.  I have to admit, it seems a bit strange to  be talking about it.  So much of what I've endured over the last two years seems  insignificant  in comparison to what Josh has been handed.   My hope is that by sharing my story, other mothers  going through this  will  be  validated  in their feelings. February 11 th , 2017 started out as any other day.  It was a Saturday, so I got to sleep in and spend a leisurely day with my husband ,  Matt. We met up with our friends, Spyros and Angela,  for dinner at our favorite restaurant. It was just after we ordered dinner that Matt got  the phone call that no parent ever wants to get.  “Josh was shot" are the only words I remember. How I got from the restaurant to my home is a blur.  It was the beginning of my journey. Those early...

This Friday (February 22) I will be sharing my mom‘s point of view on my injury. It is only fitting that I post about how I am trying to reclaim my independence from paralysis. This is no easy feat but for the last few months my mom has been helping me adapt everyday equipment so I am capable of doing more on my own.  One of the hardest hurdles for me to get over was my loss of independence. Paralysis really robs you of a lot of the stuff you can do for yourself. Stuff that normally I would’ve taken for granted is now more time consuming and daunting. A lot of simple things take me a while now so it makes sense to receive help but it does get frustrating. I have very mixed emotions about it because some days I will be so determined to do something simple for myself and get mad at Kass for not helping if I struggle for too long, but other days Kass will help me without me asking and I’ll get mad that she didn’t let me struggle with it. It is a huge catch 22 and it is often very unfa...