LIVE QUICKIE BLOG

Football has always been a love of mine. Since before I could walk I was mesmerized by the game. As a young child I dreamed about being an NFL player as I would play pickup games with friends and family. At the age of 12 my dream went out the window when I was diagnosed with Friedreich's Ataxia (FA), a rare neuromuscular disease. The disease is progressive, so not only did I lose my ability to walk over time, I also began to have trouble with my speech and other fine motor skill functions.

I was in a car accident in 2005, which, along with many other injuries, broke three vertebrae and damaged my spinal cord. I had an incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI) at T-11. I've been walking short distances over the years, but have had many setbacks due to various things, mostly related to the trauma I experienced in 2005. It's always been one step forward, two steps back. I felt like my progress in terms of movement had reached a plateau.

Summer has come and gone, and school has started. It's a time of getting our kids settled into a new routine, including getting to and from school in a safe manner. For some, this means navigating their way through not only their child's transportation, but his/her wheelchair as well. You would think this should be an easy task to coordinate, but unfortunately it appears to be uncharted territory.

Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers provides highly trained capuchin service monkeys free of charge to adults across the United States living with mobility impairments in order for them to receive the priceless gifts of greater independence, companionship, and hope.

NCART recently conducted a survey to measure the impact of continued inappropriate reimbursement cuts to components (aka accessories) used with Complex Rehab manual wheelchairs. Of the supplier locations surveyed, an alarming 87% have significantly reduced providing components of Complex Rehab manual wheelchairs or will be forced to do so in the next 90 days.