I never watched it when it was on the air, but I devoured all five seasons on Netflix several months ago. Man, WHAT a great show!
Yes, Justin Street as a quad was a terrific portrayal, IMO: He’s in denial at first, he breaks up with his girlfriend, he goes gaga for stem cells, he gets over himself, he drives, he gets a job, he knocks a girl up–all so true to life and just fantastically told, story-wise. Five stars.
Clear eyes, full hearts…
I have a variety of ways that I can use the phone, but the most common is with a Bluetooth headset. It’s modified for me, so I have an earbud in my ear, but the headset itself is clipped to my shirt collar (or on a lanyard if my shirt collar is too low that day). If the phone rings, I just bump the button on the headset with my chin and answer. To dial, I press and hold the button and give a voice command to dial the person/number.
Ahaha! I was worried about that in retrospect (curiously, it did not cross my mind while making the sn). Oh well. 
I love ice cream, and for that reason I honestly don’t know if I have just one favorite flavor. My favorites are strawberry, mint chocolate chip, moose tracks, and just a high-quality French vanilla.
Ha! Consider me flattered. 
Aw. That means heaps from a fellow gimp. Thank you.
Glad to hear you say that. It’s one of my four or five favorite shows ever.
Hm, good question. The sad fact is that there are TONS more bad portrayals than good ones. Also I don’t necessarily go seeking out books and movies with disabled characters, per se, so I may have missed quite a few. But, off the top of my head, Sam Worthington in Avatar was amazing. I loved how, even though his chair was a pivotal plot point, the story wasn’t about it, you know? He was this B.A. ex-Marine who, even in his own paralyzed body, was still capable and manly. Realistic chair, realistic attitude, realistic body–the atrophied leg thing was crazy! I googled how they did that immediately after the movie and discovered that they had taken a mold of a real para and made fake legs from it. These legs sat on the chair, and Sam’s real legs were hidden beneath the chair. Oh, also Sam Worthington is blisteringly hot, so that didn’t hurt.
I hated Million Dollar Baby, and thought it only highlighted the most devastating after-affects of a quadriplegic SCI. I actually didn’t know the plot included this before seeing the movie, so that was a little awkward. I had a lot of interesting conversations after that movie with friends (and a lot of interesting looks leaving the theatre…). To me it was just another “I’d rather be dead than in a wheelchair” movie. Gah.
It’s late and I’m totally blanking on any other examples. If you think of one, throw it at me and I’ll tell you if I thought it was any good (if I’ve seen/read it, that is). And of course, other chair users should feel free to add to the critique.
You CANNOT be leaving me hanging on this. One more time:
CLEAR EYES! FULL HEARTS!
…
(and you say?)
Gary Sinise as Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump, for one.
Also, Tom Cruise as Ron Kovick in Born on the Fourth of July.
Thank you so much for your kind words. What nice things to say.
My brother (my boss) reminded me today (apropos of nothing…I think) that I need to be careful what I share online, not only just for general safety reasons, but because we recruit in the tech industry. My clients are all very savvy, technologically, though most don’t have any idea I’m a quadriplegic. However, if they ever put two and two together and found this or the devotee thread, I would be kind of horrified. So that’s as specific as I can get about what I do. I hope you’ll understand.
I have totally seen The Other Side of the Mountain. Really touching, and a wonderful portrait of someone who had a full life despite a physical disability. And thanks for the compliment! I definitely prefer to think that would have happened, rather than I would have become a drug addict or something. LOL.
Do you mean, do I live in the San Fernando Valley? Nope. Why? Do I, like, sound like that, Veronica?
Right back at ya.
I hated Million Dollar Baby for the same reason you did. It was great until she got injured. In my experience, many people who are injured think about suicide at first, but get over that pretty quickly. The will to live is much stronger than most people think. I hated that MDB perpetuated that old stereotype. When I was working with SCI patients and told strangers what I did, a common response was “I wouldn’t want to live like that.” I would usually answer something like “you might surprise yourself” and tell them what my patients said and how they responded.
Totally understand. No problem.
Re: not becoming a drug addict, I once ran into a former professor of mine in the grocery store. In 2 minutes of catching him up on what I was doing to pay the rent he retorted, “Good! I’m glad you didn’t end up in jail!” It was so off the wall and hilarious!
No, you don’t sound valley. I was just pulling your leg to see if you could feel that. :eek:
Reading your thread kept me up way too late tonight…thanks for sharing!
Just curious, are you a gamer at all? PC/console?
Can’t lose!
(Sorry to butt it. I love that show.)
You’re so kind. We’ve been super-lucky with his CF so far. He’ll be four in August and has so far been healthy and avoided the hospital completely.
I’ve never heard of the CoughAssist or anything similar being used for CF, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much. You’ve been saying that the details of SCIs are so individual - CF is the same way. One person could have a great deal of lung involvement and no digestive involvement, or vice versa. Or anything in between. Some people develop CF-related diabetes (a different animal than type 1 or type 2), and some do not, and no one knows exactly why.
I know when he’s old enough - probably pretty soon - that his CF team will teach him coughing exercises to do during and after his Vest treatments. Huff coughing and other exercises are dependent on him being physically and cognitively able to do them, though. Having CF doesn’t prevent you from having other conditions, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a CoughAssist or something similar was used for a patient with both CF and another condition that prevented them from completing the coughing exercises.
On another note, I’m glad to read that the portrayal of Jason Street on Friday Night Lights was well-done. My favorite thing about that show was the realism of the relationships (for instance, it’s clear Tammy Taylor loves her husband deeply, but she also occasionally considers strangling him), and it made me happy to hear that that piece was also portrayed well. It certainly worked on me - when I see the actor who portrayed Jason Street in something else, I still get a split-second jolt because he’s just walking around like nothing happened.
Anyway, add me to your fangirl list. I’m loving this thread and your dynamic voice.
Forgive me for asking, but I am just a bit confused here: why can’t you tell us what field you work in? Could you explain your reasoning a bit more? I’m not trying to get you to share anything you feel uncomfortable about; I only want to understand why you feel uncomfortable about it.
Because a ton a personal information was shared, often labeled as TMI in other threads…? I’m guessing umkay would want to be seen as a button-down professional and not have clients reading the stuff in the two threads here on the Dope.
I don’t want to speak for her, but I wouldn’t want that to happen to me. No way. No how.
.
Right but are any of her clients going to do the sleuth work and detective work necessary to determine that the girl in these threads is in fact the person who is their co-worker? And is that even possible? With just the field of employment given? She already said none of them know she is a quad, so even if they read those threads, why would they suspect her? Unless her field is so specialized that by revealing it she would be revealing her identity. If that’s the case then I understand.
Ok, this reads in a way I didn’t intend. I totally understand not wanting one’s professional life to veer into one’s private life, especially when that private life can attract a lot of unwanted and potentially dangerous attention. I only wanted to know how giving a general field of employment can cause those lines (professional vs private) to blur.
I’m a bit confused, too: I’ve said I do tech recruiting. I’m wondering why that’s not specific enough for you? That’s the exact field I work in. When I said I didn’t want to get more specific, I meant that I didn’t want to discuss what companies I work for, or what specialties I deal with.
In this thread, I’ve given my first name, the area where I live, the field I work in, and lots of demographic info about my family. I’ve also described a lot of TMI stuff. Forgive me for trying to keep the two from linking up in personally undesirable ways.
RE: Your skepticism that someone could find me on this board. The fact is, I recruit very smart, geeky, (mostly) guys from all over the country who make their livings on their computers. In other words, precisely the kind of person who would find their way to an online forum like The Dope.
Sure, most of the prospects and companies I work with don’t know that I’m a quad; my brother is the face of the company to our corporate clients, and face-to-face meetings with prospects in my industry are rarely necessary. I don’t think it’s likely that some CEO of a company we work with is going to meander his way to this thread and realized it’s me. But, I wouldn’t be all that surprised to find that one of my past or present prospects was on this board, and could identify me with not a whole lot more info, lack of knowledge about my disability notwithstanding.
And my co-workers, who for sure know I’m a quad? Um, yeah, they definitely could. I’ve seen the web connect people in some crazy ways, for good and for bad, and this is not an instance where I’d like that to happen to me.
Perhaps this is unusual, but I’m not on any mission here to create a major web presence, where my face, name, and all my personal info is connected to everything I do online or say here on The Dope. I don’t have any desire to be famous on the internet. To be honest, this thread wouldn’t exist if not for the safe semi-anonymity that prevails here; only my most intimate friends know a lot of the details of my care that I’ve described here, for obvious reasons. If I thought I’d be sharing my real life with everyone here, I would probably have been more guarded in my answers. Because I wasn’t planning on splicing my real and internet life together, I’ve been able to be frank and honest here, and I think that’s been a good thing.
Plus, you know that I’ve already been contacted by people who’ve read my threads on this site and “would like to meet me” because they’re “really into quadriplegic women.” So it’s not just my co-workers and business acquaintances that I’m hiding from; it’s people who could use any further info about what I do to find my brother’s company, my work email, my company website picture, ME, etc.
I’m aware that my caution is unusual, but I just think it’s crazy to put so much of myself out there. Especially since my job has provided me many, many opportunities to see a potentially great placement go kablooey because of something somebody said on their Facebook page.
Does that make sense to you now? I’m not trying to be an enigma, wrapped in a conundrum, shrouded in mystery. I’m just trying to keep (IMHO) safe and healthy boundaries here. Is that unreasonable?