My Accident
On November 10,
2003, my junior year of high school, I was the passenger in a bad car crash,
which left me in a coma for three months and paralyzed on my left side. Due to
the injury sustained from the crash, I was left with a Traumatic Brain Injury
(TBI). After I awoke, I had to relearn everything; I had gone back to an
infantile state. I had to relearn to
walk, talk, eat, swallow, and use the bathroom. I knew from the day that I woke
up that I had to get busy getting better because I wanted to live a “normal”
life, not a life how the doctors told me I had to live. The initial therapy
took almost a year. I spent three months in a facility and a lot of outpatient
therapy once I got to go home. Now, after almost 10 years, my left side has
regained motion, except my left hand. Now when I need to complete a task that
would normally take two hands, I just figure out a way to do that task with
only one good hand. Now I live in my own apartment, go to school full time, and
have a work study job.
When
I graduate from Bethany College, I want to become a motivational speaker.
College
is definitely a struggle. College is a
welcomed struggle, which will pay off in the long run. This
journey is different for me than most, because
I never know exactly how long walking up the hill
to get onto campus will take. I usually leave
around 20 minutes early to make sure that I am in
class on time and prepared. Or I might have to
work that much harder than my fellow students to
get the intended meaning of the lecture that the
professor gives. On bad days, when my left knee
is causing me pain, or it is very slick outside
because of ice or snow, I just call Bethany Security for a ride. To this
day I do not drive a car, because my reaction time has
significantly slowed down, so much that it would not be safe for me to
drive. These are some new rituals that I have developed to succeed
in a college setting with the huge challenges in my life deriving from the
accident. Anthony Robbins, in his
motivational speech, points out that the rituals of life are very apparent to
success, and you have to make your own rituals and habits and do what you have
to do even when you do not want to do it (Robbins, 2011). In addition, Robbins
says that essentially you have to think for yourself and not allow others’
expectations to limit you or your possibilities (Robbins, 2012).In other words
don’t allow others to figure out what you can or cannot do, learn to fight for
what you want.
Hopefully I will become a motivational speaker, just to offer a
different point of view to others. I know that helps me sometimes, just to
hear a different side to a story. Sometimes I joke about
being crippled or handicapped, but after seeing Aimee Mullins’ speech, “The
Opportunity of Adversity” has made me see how hurtful words can be. I will
think before I throw words around as if they are no big deal. But if you
think about it each word has a specific meaning and we often try to use a word
improperly to mean what we want it to mean, when a single word could be
very offensive to someone else.
I
really hope that after reading this that you were able to take something away
from this.
That is the only reason for me to share my
story. But if not then please feel free to tell me your
opinion on how I can maybe deliver my story in a
more effective way. Thank you for reading
this!
References
Mullins,
Aimee (2009) The opportunity of adversity [video file].
Robbins,
Anthony (2011) Motivational speech [video file].
Robbins,
Anthony (2012) Tony Robbins reveals greatest secret ever [video file].
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