I’ll start this Monday’s post with a quote: “you are the company that you keep.” If this saying rings true, then Kass and I must be pretty damn cool. If you have been on Facebook or Instagram at all this last week then you’ve probably seen some sweet pictures of Kass and I’s getaway to Maine. We applied for a veterans retreat through the Travis Mills Foundation months and months ago and it was easily the best decision that I’ve made since becoming injured. I don’t intend on going into crazy detail regarding Staff Sergeant Travis Mills simply because of the fact that it isn’t my story to tell. What I can say is that the essence of self pride and motivation that this man gives off is extremely infectious and profound and what he does for the veteran and disabled community is unreal. SSG Mills was a Squad Leader with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan and was hit by an IED leaving him one of five surviving quadruple amputees. His story of perseverance and drive is extremely humbling and ...

I have said it before and I will say it again, complacency is bad. It can ruin relationships and can reap havoc on your mental health. I find myself working my way out of bad habits constantly. Being cooped up inside on beautiful days. Eating poor choices in food and skipping workouts. But my worst bad habit that I adopted post-injury was saying no. “Do you want to meet us for dinner?”. “Want to go to the movies?” “Want to go out back and relax with me and the dog?”. No, no, no.  I had become so self conscious and anxious about my injury. I dreaded things that I used to love simply because I couldn’t do them right or had to try them differently. I was afraid that something would medically happen to me while I was out in the public and I would be embarrassed because of it. As much as I preached about taking pride in my situation and owning this injury, I still cared about what people thought. I would get embarrassed if my chair made a noise in church or if I had to recline my wheelc...

https://www.leadthewayfund.org/honor-our-fallen/ SGT Cameron Meddock showed up to battalion at a weird time for me. I was injured and working on moving companies and I had seen a lot of new guys come and go. Cam was not one of those guys. Some people show up and you just know. Cam was such a nice and genuine dude. We could sit around and shoot the shit and goof off about all things Texas with my best buddy Jason L. Upton and then watch Cam’s demeanor completely shift at the range. Put a weapon in his hands and tell him to perform and perform he did. Cam excelled in all things Ranger and it was humbling to witness before I left the company.  SGT Leandro Jasso was a great example of the grit that it takes to excel in Ranger Bn. We were privates together in 1D, and competition between squads was alive and well. I will always remember the wrestling match that we had right before pre-deployment leave and the subsequent shiner that I brought home with me from a swift boot to the face....

“The jealous are troublesome to others, but torment to themselves” - William Penn Torment is a pretty good way to describe feeling jealous. It’s a normal reaction... wanting something that is not yours. Normally it involves wealth, vehicles, simple pleasures... tangible items. What about body image? When I was a skinny little teenager all that I wanted was broad shoulders, a defined chest, abs and biceps. When I was a broke army private all that I wanted was better living conditions and more respect. When I was hauling ass on my motorcycle and maxing out my RPM’s on the highway all that I wanted was a bigger Harley Davidson with a sixth gear. When I became paralyzed all that I wanted was a working body. At first, everything made me jealous. The simplest things, just because I was now unable to do them. Someone opening a door by themselves. Someone opening a bottle of water. Someone using their hands for literally anything. The ease of someone getting in and out of a vehicle. Someone be...

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...