Be Positive! That’s what I keep saying to myself all day from getting up in the morning until I go to bed at night, and probably while I’m sleeping too.

I suffered a spinal cord injury C6/7 in October, 1989, and I was told from day one that I would never walk again.

After being discharged from the hospital where I spent eight months, I requested physical therapy, but was told that “I’d broken my neck, had a spinal cord injury and I just hadn’t accepted the fact that I would never walk again. Too right I thought!

After a little gentle persuasion and a big bouquet of flowers, I managed to get a referral with a physical therapist named Denise, who has become a great friend of mine. She understood what I hoped to achieve, and she was willing to give me a chance to reach my goal of walking. And for that, I will be always eternally grateful.

After Denise was transferred to another department, I was seen by another therapist, but eventually was told that they could not help me any more and that I was expecting too much.

I thought to myself, “Who do you think you are? You are not God. What right have you got to tell me what I can achieve and what I cannot?” Since then, I have been doing my own type of exercise, and to this day I am still improving.

Here are some points that help me, and they may help you.

1. I picture my body as a road map. All the nerves and pathways transfer messages from the brain to my legs when I want them to move, for example. I classify them as roads-both A roads and B roads.
   When you have an injury and the pathway is blocked, stopping the message from getting through, I think of that as a roadblock. So what do you do?
   Instead of going down the A road, you go down the B road. The first time you try it, you might get lost, and the message might get lost. So you try again and again and again until you eventually get there.
   What I used to do was to ask a friend to move my leg for me, as I was willing it to move, and then after a while there sometimes was a flicker and then nothing. It was like a delayed reaction. Over a period of time, the movement got stronger. But that told me the message was getting there eventually. It just took longer because it was travelling down the B road and not the A road. But the more you travel down that route, the more you get used to it and the quicker you get there.
2. Make your goals small so they are more achievable, because every time you reach a goal you will get a buzz. If your goals are too big, it will take longer to reach them, and you can get disheartened.
3. Don’t be too impatient- look at it as a long time exercise.
4. Write things down, because there will be days when you think to yourself, “I’m wasting my time here- I don’t seem to be getting any better.” So what do you do? You look in your book, and then you will realize that you are improving. Recovery can be very slow.
5. A little exercise often, is better than a lot of exercise not so often.
6. I find closing my eyes and rehearsing my exercises also helps. It’s getting back to retraining the body, and you know the old saying- practice makes perfect!
7. And do not forget you will have bad days as well as good days.
8. Always remember there is always someone else worse off than you. Instead of looking at what you have lost, be thankful for what you have. There will be someone somewhere wishing they had what you have.

If by reading this helps anyone, then all the better.