THE OBSERVATORY: Live Now: Don’t Just Wait For “The Cure”

By Craig Kennedy

If Christopher Reeve were alive today, the first piece of advice he would have for us all would be to live for today. Despite all the work he did to find a cure for paralysis, Reeve lived in order to find a way to make each day better. He strived to improve his quality of life so that he could live a meaningful existence until he could walk again.

It’s hard to imagine that the world’s progress in this scientific field over the last decade could have anything but a positive affect on people with disabilities, but perhaps it has affected the newly injured spinal cord patients in rehabilitation centers all over the world. Instead of getting back to life and enjoying all of the opportunities available to people with disabilities, many new patients are distracted by waiting for “the cure.”

Don’t get me wrong, Christopher Reeve is truly one of my heroes. He achieved more for spinal cord research and people with disabilities since his injury in 1994 than had been accomplished in history. His courage and determination to find a cure for paralysis has advanced the scientific study of nervous system disorders well beyond what anyone ever thought possible. Believe it or not, with all of the positive things that he was striving to get done, Reeve took a lot of criticism in the first few years of his post- injury life for only concentrating on “the cure.”

Several years ago I returned to Craig Hospital in Denver to do a motivational talk to a group of new injuries and a group of recently discharged patients. Before the talks I was instructed by the program director that at no time was I to talk about “the cure.” This seemed extreme to me until the director explained that “the cure” is all they hear about; it is everywhere in the media, and they hear it from their families and friends. “The last thing I want these patients doing is sitting around waiting for the cure,” I was told. That was an affirmation to me just how important it is to live in the present and not in waiting.

Living an active and fulfilling life is important whether you are living with a disability or not. I sensed this from the first day I woke up in the hospital after breaking my back in a skiing accident in 1996. I remember lying in my hospital bed then, having to make some very important decisions that would affect the rest of my life. The most important was that I was not going to let this injury get me down or hold me back in any way. After a few weeks of thought, I decided then that I would get on with my life no matter what the circumstances, and I have never regretted it. Since that day, I have participated in more sports and activities than I did before my accident and even consider myself a better skier.

Having a positive attitude is another important part of living with a disability. This can also be the most difficult thing to achieve after a life-changing accident. The most important thing to remember is that having a positive attitude not just for you and how you deal with every day challenges. Having a positive attitude helps everyone around you.

When I broke my back, I realized that I wasn’t the only one that was affected by my accident. It affected my family and friends as well. Several of my good friends confided in me years later that they were scared to come visit me in the hospital because they really didn’t know what to expect. But when they did, and they saw that I was telling jokes and was really upbeat, it made them a lot more comfortable.

I am also a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. While I struggled for several years to figure out why I ended up in a wheelchair, I know now that this is the path that I chose. I can honestly say that if it wasn’t for this wheelchair, I would not be doing anything professionally that I am doing today. I wouldn’t be a motivational speaker, a published author, or a writer. There is a good chance I would never have met the woman that I married as well.

A big part of “living in the now” is accepting the path you are on and following it no matter what problems you encounter.

While I know in my heart that I will someday walk again, I know it will still take much time for the cure for paralysis to be developed and utilized successfully, which is exactly why I try to stay in shape, eat right, stretch, and use my standing table. I want to be healthy when the day comes to get up out of this wheelchair and start using my legs again, and so did Christopher Reeve. Your time on this planet may be short, as his was, and living in the moment is the best thing you can do for yourself. Don’t wait for cure. Get out and enjoy life to its fullest!

Craig Kennedy, with his wife Andrea Jehn Kennedy, runs the Access Anything! Web site, www.accessanything.net.