Re: [QUAD-L] raising awareness

[David K. Kelmer]

Hi Joe,

 

Welcome to the Quad-List.  I love your idea of an information booth at the Popcorn Festival.  Getting the public awareness raised concerning the abilities that someone in a chair has to offer is very important. 

 

I just had someone last week ask me if I preferred to be called "handicapped" or "disabled."  I told him that if anyone thought that I was ''disabled'' because I was in a chair, they were ''handicapped'' in their thinking.  Being able to learn how to succeed in life while in a chair ''enabled'' me to discover insights that anyone ''handicapped'' by their thinking would never understand.  He looked at me awhile before he even started to understand what I meant, but there is hope for him, he is beginning to understand!  :-)

 

Unfortunately, I have other plans for the 20th, and I'm living in Texas, but I wish you success with all you're able to do, now, and in the future.

 

 

With Love,

CtrlAltDel aka Dave
C4/5 Complete - 29 Years Post
Texas, USA    

j white <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Hello all-

 

This is my first post. I am trying to raise awareness concerning spinal cord injuries. I am organizing an information booth at the Valpariso, Indiana Popcorn Festival(http://www.popcornfest.org/popcorn.html), on September 10, 2005. At this booth I would like to inform the public about; injury prevention, injury levels/function, complete vs incomplete, the daily life of a spinal cord injured person, current programs, therapies, research, and legislation effecting the quality of life and the prospect of a cure for paralysis, and everything in between.

 

This seems like the next natural step in my life. My neck was broken when I was thrown from a mechanical bull, at the 2003 Porter County fair. I sustained a C6/C7 incomplete spinal cord injury, leaving me with paralysis from the armpits down. I have since started a spinal cord injury support group and gone to Washington DC to rally for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Act.

 

Along with the booth, I am still hoping to have a float in the parade. Unfortunately, out of the fifteen or so SCIs that I have met in my area, only five are willing to do the parade route with me. My idea is to show how many SCIs there are in the region and pull them to the information both. This doesn't play well when you only have five people rolling down the road. Would you be interested?... or interested in coming to the support group meetings? We meet on the first Friday of every month at 1pm, in Valparaiso, at Porter Hospital's Education and Rehabilitation Center, 1401 Calumet Ave. If you are interested in any of this I can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 

jOE

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