So Long, Jeets

I’ve never really been a baseball fan. When I grew up the Brewers were bad. Starting in 4th grade I got caught up in the Minnesota Twins’ 1987 World Series championship hoopla, since Minneapolis was so close to Eau Claire. Though I proudly wore the two championship sweatshirts that my Uncle Ron gave me once a week for the rest of that year, my Twins support was fleeting. I’ve certainly rarely cheered for the New York Yankees: aka The Evil Empire with bottomless pockets to spend on players. I’ve always found that aspect of MLB baseball unfair. But I have always enjoyed Derek Jeter. Just a classy, clutch player. That’s why, like many, I found Jeter’s last at bat in the last home game of his illustrious career pretty compelling. Spoiler alert: he hit a walk off single to win the game. In the big picture it was meaningless because the win had zero impact on the standings, as the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs weeks ago. But it was a pretty awesome moment that epitomized Jeets over the years.

Anyway, as Jeter’s career came to a close and the MLB playoffs got into full swing I couldn’t help but think about the first time I heard of him. It was October 1996 and the New York Yankees were in a tight World Series battle with the Atlanta Braves. That fall I made the difficult decision to move from post-SCI rehab at the local hospital in Eau Claire, WI that was close to my family to a much more aggressive rehab institution – Craig Hospital in Denver. It was one of the most lonely and challenging two months of my life, but in retrospect the best thing that I could have done at the time because I probably wouldn’t be near as independent a quad as I am now without it.

When I wasn’t in therapy sessions I passed most of my time laying in my hospital bed watching TV on a six in TV set on a swinging arm that could reposition itself to be within view regardless of which side that patients laid on. Huge chunks of my evenings were spent watching the 1996 World Series, which was dripping with national intrigue. On one side you had the dynasty that never was: the Braves, a perennially stacked baseball team that, despite having three of the all-time best pitchers in the same starting rotation, only managed to win one ring. On the other side was the Yankees: the team that had won the most World Series trophies in the history of the game, but hadn’t won a championship in almost two decades in a city starving for another one. But the most standout thing about that World Series to me was all the buzz surrounding the rookie phenom Derek Jeter, who was playing beyond his years.

As I watched Jeter over the years I couldn’t help but share a bond with him because of that, even if he did play for the baseball team that I liked seeing lose the most. Now all these years later I had my 18th anniversary of my SCI as Jeter retired from baseball. But as he made such an epic walk-off single to win that game as he closed out his baseball career, I couldn’t help but think, “Wouldn’t it be nice if my SCI ‘career’ came to such a mesmerizing end right now as well?”

New EasyStand Blog post: 17 Things I’ve Learned Since My SCI

In my latest EasyStand Blog post I cover the 17 Things I’ve Learned Since My SCI. It’s the longest post (or at least second longest) I wrote for them, but I took an in depth analysis of a lot of ups and downs of 17 years worth of living with a spinal cord injury. Cheers.

Wishing a Full Recovery for Eric LeGrand

In my very last post about the wheelchair user who scored a touchdown I described it as a cool convergence of sports and disability. But unfortunately every yin has its yang, and thus it was with great disappointment that I learned about Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand, who was paralyzed below the neck after making a tackle against Army this past weekend.  He has since undergone emergency spinal surgery and apparently is in good spirits.

Now in my world the phrase “paralyzed below the neck” is typically synonymous with quadriplegia, so I can only assume that is the kind of recovery that he has in store for him. As daunting and unfortunate as that is there has been some pretty good recent precedent of football players sustaining significant spinal cord injuries and having successful recoveries from them.

In 2000 former Penn State cornerback Adam Taliaferro sustained a SCI at the C-5 level. He was given a 3% chance of walking again but after eight months of rehab he was on his feet again (but never played again). I still remember watching him lead the team onto the field the following football season. It was pretty emotional. Rutgers coach Greg Schiano apparently spoke with mentor and former sideline boss Joe Paterno, who was Taliaferro’s coach at the time of his injury, to pick his brain about how to properly support LeGrand and move forward with the team.

In 2007 Kevin Everett, a reserve tight end for the Buffalo Bills, sustained a SCI while attempting a special teams tackle against the Denver Broncos. He suffered a compression of his C-3 and C-4 vertebrae and initially had no movement in his extremities, which made him a very high level quadriplegic. But immediately after his injury a Bills team physician, Dr. Andrew Cappuccino, decided to do a medical procedure known as cold therapy or hypothermia therapy that reduces the body’s overall temperature via an intravenous cold saline solution and thereby protected Everett’s spinal cord from further swelling and damage. The therapy was developed with a great deal of help from Dr. Barth Green, the president of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. Dr. Cappuccino called Dr. Barth after he started the cold therapy. Anyway, it was a risky decision but ultimately was a good move because despite his initial chances of walking being bleak or dismal Everett also went on to be able to walk again.

So LeGrand is currently in a tough spot to be sure. I still vividly recall being in his shoes fourteen years ago: the fear, confusion, frustration, uncertainty, etc. But working in his favor are the facts that he is a conditioned athlete and that he had his injury in a time where there are a litany of medical advancements in the world of SCI. I extend my support and sympathies to both he and his family and hope that he has a full recovery. With some luck he might even end up like Taliaferro and Everett.