Who Would’ve Thought…

So my life didn’t work out as planned. I never saw this coming. I mean who did? Never one point in my life did I think, “well, maybe I’ll be paralyzed one day.” I thought about it when my dad talked to me about how he was paralyzed from his spinal cord injury. I thought that it had to be the scariest feeling in the world. And now that I’m living it I know that it really is. But never once did I think it would happen to me. My life completely changed in an instant and went in a completely different direction. What’s done is done and I cannot change it. I must embrace it and I must embrace my future. I must make the best of my situation. The worst is over and it is time to move on.

Today I can’t do most of the things that I loved to do in the past. Trust me that I think about those things on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s the first thing I think when I wake up in the morning. Every day I wake up and I think how great it used to be to just be able to jump out of bed and hop into the shower. I miss being able to stand up in the shower and feel the hot water all over my body. I miss taking a long bath after a hard days work. I just miss being independent. I need someone to help me in the shower. I need someone to put my clothes on and put on my shoes and even tie them. I can’t even go to the bathroom on my own. I will be dependent on people for the rest of my life. I sometimes feel like a child even though I’m a full-grown man.

It’s a damn shame what happened to me. I shocked the world when I wrecked my car. In a split second I found myself fighting for my life. I scared my family and friends to tears. But I’m a miracle. At the scene of the crash they had to bring me back to life. Even after that they had no idea if I would survive everything I was about to endure. My family waited anxiously in tears while I had surgery on my neck. Hours later they found out that I survived the surgery and the fact that I was alive was all that mattered. And today I’m here to talk about it.

In the coming weeks the manic episode that fueled everything continued and no one knew whether or not I would get my mind back. They knew I had lost my body but there was still hope that I would get that back. What they really wanted was the old Adam back. Not so much physically but mentally. Every day in the hospital in Indianapolis I spent my time rambling to my mom about all the signs that I was seeing. Just like in 2008 I honestly believed that I was the second coming of Jesus Christ. I could turn everything I saw on TV or everything I listened to on my iPod into a sign. When I saw a picture of a two-door Bentley Continental GT I thought that there was going to be one there to pick me up. When I saw a segment on Fox news titled ‘Places You Can’t Go, But We Can’ featuring the most luxurious hotel suite in Indianapolis, I thought that they were showing me where I was going next. I never thought that I would spend the next 3 1/2 months in a hospital bed.

I told my mom that this was when we were being tortured just like how Jesus was on the cross. But by the time December 21, 2012 came around I would be the leader of the New World and we would live in world peace. At one point I called a news station telling them that I had the biggest story in the history of the world for them. I told them to bring one camera and one reporter. The first news station did not believe that I was Jesus Christ and neither did the second. This left me incredibly frustrated. I waited around for the day to come for someone to affirm to me that I actually was the second coming but of course that day never came.

It took about a month for the signs to go away after they got my medications straightened out. But even after that I would still see a sign here and there but they were not constant like they were at first. I thought that I would walk on Easter just like Jesus rose from the dead but that never happened. That was when I fell into a deep depression and reality finally hit me.

I would ask doctors and nurses constantly for stories about people who started walking again after months of being unable to move. No one was able to give me a story that would comfort me. I spent that first year searching for stories on the Internet of miracles. But eventually I started to think that unlike the miracle that my dad experienced I was not going to be so lucky. My miracle had already happened and that was that I was alive and I still had my mind.

I don’t think many people would have survived my crash. I have heard that waterskiing makes your bones stronger and I think that all the skiing that I did kept me alive. That, along with all the lifting and training that I had been doing over the years. I was strong and I was in great shape. At one point I ran a 5 1/2 min. mile and I could bench press 290 pounds. But after my accident I lost all of that. Now I could not even pick up a one-pound dumbbell with my left hand and I cannot even begin to do a sit up. I used to be proud of my body and I had no problem taking my shirt off. But today my body has not seen the sun for almost 2 years. It’s kind of embarrassing having a little food baby and scrawny arms but I can’t really help it. There are some things that you just have to let go.

The greatest thing about today is that I have a clear head. My mind is not foggy from marijuana use. I’ve taken control of my life again and I feel that I am a genuine better person. I love who I have become and I have my accident to thank for that. So now I’m going to use what God has left me with, my mind. I love to make people smile and laugh. God gave me a purpose in life that is greater than anything I could ever imagine. No longer do I think about the material things in life. What good would a BMW do me? I don’t need my own lake to be happy. There are so many things that I wanted in life but now many of those things I could not even use. So if I do find success I will use my money to help others. Oh yeah, and definitely buy a new van.

I do not want to live off the system for the rest of my life. I want to make a name for myself. The government pays me $700 a month and provides me with nurse and aide services. If I start making money I would lose those benefits and I would have to pay for everything out-of-pocket. It deters me from getting a civil engineering job because I would probably make just enough money to break even. So I’m trying to do something big with my life. This book is my dream and I think that I have a crazy enough story to sell enough copies to live off of. Combine that with public speaking and I think that I could live comfortably and move out of this apartment that is subsidized from the government.

I want to make a name for myself and I want to leave a legacy behind. This is me chasing my dreams. I’m excited about the future that is in store for me. I keep writing it one page at a time.