Ginger – What’s been the most unexpected change in your life?

A huge benefit of becoming disabled has been that it’s opened up the world for me. It has opened the world in a way I never anticipated. I’ve made new friends, I’ve made discoveries, I have traveled where I don’t think I would have traveled much before. I have become knowledgeable about many things including disability and spinal cord injury. Being with people with disabilities, it’s a different kind of world. I lived for many years in a very middle class, probably pretty sheltered, environment. And then poof, I became disabled, and I suddenly became exposed to a world of different cultures, different socioeconomic situations, poverty. I witnessed how people get through life every day, who are not handed the world. Suddenly, I was forced to examine my values and my priorities.