Please Understand That These Are My Views
Everyone Deals With Their SCI Differently
I Choose to Smile and Use Humor Because Life is too Short to Dwell

Make The Best Out Of Each Day Because You Never Know When It May Be Your Last...

I'm a C4-C5 spinal cord injury nut! Actually, I'm not a nut but have one crazy and very off the wall sense of humor. Some say it's quite off the wall but normally it's in good taste. I enjoy helping others with spinal cord injuries or other disabilities over come and make a life of what they have. I feel things happen for a reason and I don't look back and dwell on what was lost but to look to the future and make the very best of it. It feels good to be able to make a difference in the life of someone else whether he or she has a disability or if it's just some able bodied person who thinks they do...

Life goes on and I've learned how to deal with it and make the best of it. After being an automotive technician for years my life changed quite a bit on a beautiful May morning back in 1985. The motorcycle I was riding, a 1984 Honda Nighthawk 650's rear wheel locked up while going into a hairpin curve on a mountainous road here in Arizona. In a fraction of a second I had went from an "able-bodied" twenty-five year old who lived life on the edge to someone who would need assistance for the rest of my life. I had broken my neck between the C4 & C5 vertebrae leaving me pretty much paralyzed from the shoulders down. I knew instantly that I had "messed up and messed up real good". For six months I was dependent upon a ventilator to pump my lungs full of oxygen, unable to breathe for myself. The Doctors gave me a 0% chance of breathing on my own again, let alone live. You could say, they sure were wrong...thank you! All of my prayers have been answered; I can take a breath of fresh air on my own. My thoughts on walking again: "If they come up with a cure they do, life is too short to live for a miracle". "Live each day as it were your last and be thankful for each day you're here because you never know what's around that next corner (or if you're going to make it around it)". Life changes, I don't regret what happened to me, life was wonderful before my accident and it's wonderful now. Granted I have had losses but I truly believe they have made me a stronger person. People deal with adversities in different ways and for some reason I've grown stronger from my losses as hard as those losses are. Some people crawl in holes, pull dirt over their heads and dwell upon things which just compound problems. Instead if one pulls back the dirt from above them and look around, there is still a whole world out there, it just may be a bit more challenging. Myself, I enjoy challenges, they're "fun" in my eyes. My sense of humor is very off the wall. One time I fell out of my wheelchair while going down the road and landed face first in a ditch lined with river rock. Of course I landed on the only place where I have feeling (my head & face) and lay there laughing. My former girlfriend's young daughter who was with me took off running down the street as I yelled out, "Where are you going?" When she answered me, "To call mom" (who was working 20 minutes away) I was quite thankful that the ditch wasn't full of water! Any ways, a man stopped to help me out, my little dog bit his daughter in the butt and my only injury was a small cut on my eyebrow. Oh and the little girl, pretty much just a scare and a lot of tears.

I enjoy helping others with spinal cord injuries in any way I can whether it is moral support, medical equipment suggestions or whatever it may be. Also talking with their families to help them cope with what a spinal cord injury is and how it affects everyone.

My favorite song "Get Over It" By the Eagles off of their Hell Freezes Over CD. This song tells life just how it is! Everyone should listen to this song if you have a disability or even if you are "able-bodied", take it to heart and do your best to "get over it", whatever it may be. Just don't "kill a lawyer", I won't be responsible for that.

Just always keep a great attitude, there's always someone worse off than yourself no matter how bad off you think you have it!

One last thing: If you ride a motorcycle and have a brain, PROTECT IT. Wear a helmet, it saved my life, it could save yours. If you don't have a brain, wear one any ways because knowing what I put my family and friends through was nothing short of HELL. Think about loved ones looking over you in a casket...mine almost did and I'd do ANYTHING in the world to erase those memories from their minds.

Since this writing I've needed a number of flap surgeries. On April 2001 I went in for what should have been a very simple debridement on the "beginnings" of a pressure sore. On the word of my former home health nurse that this surgeon was "just wonderful", I took her word and had surgery. Never did this surgeon give me any antibiotics (before, during nor after). A severe infection set into not only the wound but also my blood. Again I was holding onto life by only a shoe string and a lot of prayers. Thank God that I'm still here and able to share my story with others! 

More About Me...
(maybe more than you care to know)

I was on my way to "NoWhere", yes NoWhere, Arizona. It is a very small town located in the mountains of central Arizona. I hadn't been drinking or anything but a friend of mine & I were going to go have "a" beer and return home before our wives got home. We were both on separate motorcycles going down a mountainous curving road. I had been down this same road many, many times before but this time was a bit different. As I was down shifting to go into a hairpin curve at about 25 mph, the rear wheel locked up. The next thing I knew I was flat on my back and it felt as if my arms and legs were suspended in air. When I asked my friend about it he said, "No, I don't think you better move". Right then and there it sunk in, I had mess up and messed up good. There wasn't a doubt in my mind as to what happened, I had broken my neck. I was driven by ambulance to our small community hospital in Prescott and then air lifted to a trauma center in Phoenix (Barrows Neurological Institute, a part of St. Joseph Hospital)  that was set up to handle such injuries and one of the best places in the country to be near if you're going to have a spinal cord injury or head injury. I was lucky (or smart) enough to know that my head was worth protecting with a couple of hundred dollar full-face helmet that at the time was probably the best you could buy. So rather than feel the air blow through your hair, take a moment and think about the air blowing through your skull for a moment because it takes but a split second for something totally out of your control to happen and a few hundred dollars spent will be money spent wisely, I'll testify to that!

Over the next few days in intensive care things were going down hill rapidly and it looked as if my life was about to end a bit prematurely. Where my neck had broken severe trauma was inflected, the spinal cord began to swell taking out more and more of my sensation and was creeping towards my brain stem. Double pneumonia, kidney infections, bladder infections, you name it, I had it. My temp rose to 105, 106, 107 even 108. As if things couldn't get worse, the swelling continued toward my brain stem my breathing stopped. I remember a bright light in my eyes as two Doctors looking over me one with a scalpel and cut my throat open to insert a tract. No longer could I breathe on my own and my body was being pumped full of pain medication. My quality of life looked very, very poor. Was this to be another reality check or one more step toward death? The doctors told my family that I wouldn't make it and they all had flown out from Indiana to say their last good-byes. My world was spinning out of control and I felt as if there was nothing left to live for, I was ready to meet my maker. I was ready to go, I wanted to go because what quality of life I was to have looked dismal and a "machine" was the only thing keeping me alive. That was before my hand was placed upon my wife's stomach and reminded about our baby that was due in August. That is all that I felt like living for and it was something I strived for. I no longer looked towards death but to being with my little baby and my family. I did have something to live for!

What was yet to come was one thousand times harder to deal with and except than being paralyzed, than being on life support but it was unknown to me at the time and had nothing to do with my accident. I would have gone through accident and all that followed to me a hundred times over before living through what was yet to come.

The date was June 29, 1985, just about two months after my accident that I got the news. The doctors had just delivered us a baby boy, my wife had given birth prematurely. For a very few seconds I felt as if I was at the top of the world. But the words that followed thereafter were that he lived less than 30 minutes before passing away. My whole world came crashing down upon me. I couldn't talk with anyone about it because I always got the same response. "I know how you feel..." No, I really don't think you know those feelings. It had felt like someone had ripped my heart out, beat the life out of it, put it back in and then somehow I was expected to continue to live on with the deepest feeling of pain traveling through my body that only another parent who's had the same loss can relate to. I had kept my feeling all locked up inside of me for nearly five years only to wake up in the middle of the night with tears literally flowing from my eyes and crying unlike anything I had ever known before. I had felt a "guilt" or something for many years for not being there when he was born even though it would have been impossible under the circumstances and it would not have changed things for him.

The death of my son will be something that I'll never get over but that I've found a way to deal with. My little Eric Matthew is in a better place, he is free of pain and free of tears there in Heaven. There's a song by Eric Clapton, I believe the name of it is "Tears In Heaven". That song pretty much sums up how I feel in every way. I've never felt a pain like the loss of him and honestly feel that there isn't anything that could ever equal or surpass that pain nor fill that vacancy in my heart.

After being dependent on the ventilator to keep me alive for my prayers were answered. I was able to breathe on my own again after being on it for nearly six months. That surprised quite a few people but I had faith that someday I wouldn't need it. I never prayed for the use of my arms and legs but only prayed that I could breath on my own once again. Whether I walk again doesn't matter so long as I have good health. If some miracle cure comes out great but I feel why live for a dream? Live each day as it could be your last because you never know what might be around that next corner or whether or not you'll make it around it as in my case. Enjoy life, it is never be that bad and make the best of it. My favorite song, "Get Over It" by the Eagles. It says it just how life should be! Though that works for my "disability", I'll never ever get over what I miss in being a father to my own son, my little Eric.

It hurts me greatly to see or hear of a young child who suffers any sort of disability. For I was able to do most everything I had ever wanted to do before my accident at age 25. That was many years ago and I don't ever look back and wish things were different. What happened, happened so I just make the best of it and you know, it really isn't much different. But a young child will never really have the chance to experience all that life has in store for an "able-bodied person" nor do the many things that I was able to.

My marriage to my wife at the time didn't survive all what happened and I don't hold any bad feelings towards her. We both suffered the same great loss. We divorced shortly thereafter. I may not walk, I may not stand but nothing holds me back from what I want or where I go so ,if you see me coming you might watch your toes. I'll cruise down to the store in my wheelchair a couple of times a week and go shopping or whatever.

Other lifelong tragedies have happened that have really put my life back into order but really messed it up thereafter.  On November 29, 2006 my older brother whom I looked up to greatly passed away from a massive heart attack.  This nearly put a knife through my heart but at the time I didn't realize that was the icing on the cake.  Less than four months later on March 27, 2007 my mother who was my world and my only surviving parent passed away from everything from a very bad heart CHF (congestive heart failure) to kidneys that diabetes took a toll on.  I can't put into words how hard it is to lose not one family member but two within such a close time period.  Yes, my life and my world is different and it turned me into a completely different person who looks at life differently now.  I can't say how that is but for a few months after my brother passed it seemed that I was a completely different person but I kept it within myself.  If you're ever effected by something like this reach out for help as soon as possible or you can do things your not knowingly doing.  Right now I can't think straight enough even though this has been months ago but someday I'll figure it out and I hope that its nothing bad.  Just get help, I've yet to and its really wearing on me both mentally and physically.  Reach out to them as often as you can and tell them all that you love them because after it's too late that's something you can just do in your prayers which isn't a bad thing but saying it while they are still alive makes a world of difference.  I still try calling one or the other from time to time just to remember I can't do that but in the quiet of the night.  I'm a mental mess and I'll admit that for the first time ever in my life here on my site.  I hope to sit down and get someone to talk with before it's too late.  Too late for what, hell I don't know but I need to get some things out of my head...now!  It sucks to wear a fake smile or to look into a mirror and wonder who that person really is because it's quite scary.

In 1996 I got married to a wonderful woman but some things come to a halt and on July 16, 2006 we went our separate ways. I had a house built about 50 miles away from my previous residence but I have a little question that lingers in the back of my head, "am I worth having another woman in my life or would I be more of a hindrance?"  Maybe someday that question will be answered but I have more than a few doubts. Irregardless of what the 'surgeon' did, the amount of time I can sit up and everything else I haven't changed from the same guy who I was prior to all the surgeries that were needed between 2002 and 2005, even be now being single hasn't changed me from who or how I was years ago. I have no idea why, I should be bitter and hateful towards the two surgeons but I'm sure when their day come that payback time will kick in. After all, the second surgeon is a breast enlargement specialist so I'm lucky there isn't a nipple on my butt cheeks!

I have since started my own web development business, which has started out quite well. The name of my business which is called JBW Web Design is operated out of my home, I am my own boss. If you or someone you know need a web site constructed at a reasonable price, please contact me anytime.

Questions, comments? Drop me a line.

bwalz@commspeed.net

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