SCI Awareness Month: Brittany Wilson
This month of September is SCI Awareness Month, and we are bringing you stories and insights from our WAGS of SCI community. Read on for Brittany Wilson's experience!
"Life after sci is like a club you really never wanted to join, and yet now that you are in it you spend the rest of your life trying to figure out the rules and how to excel in this very unique and private club. It is a club where you wear the badge in the form of two wheels where your legs once stood and you are continually told how proud everyone is that you are doing so well in this club, but little do they know. Little do they know that you spend your days trying to figure out how to direct someone to be your hands because your own just won’t do what you long for them to do. Little do they know that it’s not just a chair, but it is a lack of control of your own bladder and bowels! It is not just a chair, but it is your extremities spasming painfully out of control without cause, or sometimes because you’re sick or uncomfortable or tired or many other reasons. They don’t know, or maybe they don’t want to think about the impact that this club has on your relationships... (continued below)
They don’t think about that where once stood a man that could fix, solve, and change the world by simply holding your hand now sits. They don’t think about how hugs will never be the same, yet alone life in the bedroom. They don’t think about how your are constantly trying to figure out parenthood and how to easily get across a soccer field in a wheelchair. They don’t see the planning that goes into daily activities insuring they are wheelchair accessible. They see a chair, a badge for a club no one truly wants to join. They don’t see the nerve pain, the shoulder pain, the pure exhaustion that your body endures using it in a way that it certainly wasn’t designed to be used. Being a member of this club is hard, but there is still joy to be found. There is laughter and passion for this life that still exist! There is competition and games still to be played! This club may look different, but it’s one you are not in alone!"
-By Brittany Wilson, QuadWife (@mrs.b.m.w on Instagram)