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Writer's pictureDrew Clayborn

The Beginning of Love and Support

For the longest time now I’ve been wanting to create a database of all the information and resources I’ve learned since my accident to share with others with spinal cord injuries so that others might come across it, whether they’re newly injured or been dealing with it for years, might see something they’ve never heard of or thought of that can change the way they do things. The problem is whenever I try to put it together I realize there’s so many things that I’ve learned that I don’t even know where to start! Recently I decided to use our website to start a blog and the next two weeks I’ll be forcing myself to write about different topics each day.


For this first post I wanted to think back to when I was in the hospital. One of the first things I think about when my accident first happened sophomore year of high school is all the people that came to see me and continued to come to the hospital for weeks. There was a constant influx of friends, family, students, teachers, people who I’d never met who went to our church, just anyone and everyone.



Before my accident I was highly active participating in many different school programs from marching band to football to school plays and musicals to guitar club to class dances for pep rally’s. I did things that became school staples like pajama Friday’s or going all out during spirit week. So when the hospital at first wanted to limit the number of people allowed in the room my dad was saying no we need to keep things as normal as possible. Which for me meant being around as many people as possible! I remember my nurse in the ICU would tell me stories about that first night and she said there were rows of people wrapped around the hallway overflowing out the waiting room just waiting to see me. Friends coming in playing guitar, singing to me.



Everyone being there with me or sending me pictures and videos from school are still some of my fondest memories of that time. I think that played a large role in the fact that I never got down, no part of me was depressed or sad, and everyday I just thought about how I could get back to that. The thought and narrative surrounding me each day was 'I can't wait for you to come back', 'We need you in marching band', 'We miss you in class'. So everything I was doing and learning in those 3 months was what's next, what am I gonna do going forward, just keep moving forward. So that's what I did! Keep moving! Keep pushing! Keep striving to do whatever the fuck it is you want to do with your life! There's nothing holding you back more than you! This was how I decided to look at things and it was the constant love and support I received early on that gave me the confidence to feel this way.



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