As a Creative Director in the New York City Advertising World, eighty-hour workweeks and all-night production deadlines were commonplace. One weekend while “getting away from it all,” I was snowboarding in Vermont with a group of friends, when on the last day of awesome conditions and exceptional fun, I took what seemed to be a harmless fall after landing from a jump in the pike park. Unfortunately, when I was unable to move my legs, I realized my fall was not as harmless as I had hoped.
I had broken my back in two places, T12 & L1 and severed 90% of my spinal cord. I was airlifted to Albany Medical Center where they preformed every test in the world, and then told me a lot of “we just don't know how the nerves work yet”. I spent four days in traction before they performed an eleven-and-a-half hour fusion surgery by where they used one of my ribs to fuse a spinal cage, two rods, and four screws to stabilize my back. Then came the grey-faced doctors to help me understand that with 90% spinal intrusion, “I should begin to come to terms with the fact that I will never walk again”. But, they were very quick to reassure me that if I put fourth some realistic goals for the two months I needed to spend in acute rehab; such as learning how to cook pasta, brush my teeth, and go through a closed door while living in a wheelchair, I should be just “fine and happy.”
A huge problem in today's healthcare environment is that most people are still terrified of the things they don't understand, and are afraid of the legal barriers that keep them from speaking freely. But every now and then, you will find a nurse that looks you in the eye, and says, “ I need to tell you the truth.” The Truth? What she told me “was that the most important thing I needed to heal, was an uncompromising positive attitude and an equal amount faith!" She was also kind enough to tell me that if I did not posses either, I had better find them ASAP, or I would end up allowing other people to tell me if and when I would ever heal! She told me this immediately when the doctor left the room after telling me I would never walk again.
Eight years later, I have regained the feeling from my waist to my knees and currently I am only paralyzed from my knees to my feet. Although paralyzed in both feet, I am able to walk with the use of splints and a cane, which, by now I have rather grown to enjoy as a fashion accessory. Without going into the Readers Digest version of how I got from a traction bed with 10% of a spinal cord to the SCI survivor I am today, I can only say that it has truly been a journey and lesson of humility, strength, passion and faith. But I will never forget that I owe it all to the honest and wise words of a nurse¬ who took the time and the chance to talk to a terrified paralyzed guy on a table. A guy who was still trying to understand how his entire world had just ended within seconds.
The “Art Gallery for Life” is the simple result of my effort to reinvent my life, my career and myself. I have been given the opportunity to now fall back on my BFA from Parsons The New School of Design, and my most original love of art, the study of nature and the human body. I thank all of you who have already shown so much amazing interest and support, and as always feel free to share any suggestions or comme
nts.
Cheers! Tom
