Some Friendships Last A Lifetime!

I had a great experience yesterday when three of my close friends from the dorms I lived in in Berkeley during the 1974-'75 school year flew in for a few hours of sharing old memories and making new ones. Karen "Smalley" Bixby called me a couple days ago and asked if she could fly from a conference in Chicago for a few hours and then go back later yesterday afternoon.

I replied, "Of course, that would be great, but I could not come to get you at the airport. Maybe Mike Ross could pick you up and take you back when you needed to fly out?"

Kathy (Keen) Mancuso lives in Houston now and when Karen proposed the idea to Kathy, Keeno was ready to come if she could get good flights with corresponding times.

Here is a picture of the four of us, as they were getting ready to leave:

As always, click on the image to make it larger:

Mike had me order some Chinese take-out food for lunch, which they picked up on the way to my apartment. Karen helped feed me with chopsticks, which she was very adept at using! There is no way I can use those sticks!

The year I was in Putnam Hall was the first year the Physically Disabled Student Program (PDSP) started integrating students with disabilities into the general student population. UC Berkeley was way ahead of its time! The program has since dropped the first word, Physically, from its title and is now known as DSP. It is housed in the Ed Roberts Campus, which is located a few blocks from campus and was started to honor all of the work Ed did around the world for the disability community. I have written about him before and you can find that post by clicking on his name in the labels at the end of this post.

Karen was a Resident Assistant for Freeborn Hall. She went out of her way to make friends with the three students with disabilities that lived in Putnam. It was no easy task since Greg was unable to speak and had to spell everything slowly on his lapboard. Gary lived on the other side of me and spoke very slowly and non-discernible by most people. I became his interpreter and when anyone new would join us at lunch, they would look to me to tell him/her what Gary was trying to say.

Another story everyone remembered fondly was getting my mail because I could not open the mailbox, which was high on the wall and down one floor. When my mother would send pictures of my little brother, Chad who was just a few months old when I moved to Berkeley and he was learning to walk, she would send a half dozen pictures a week of Chad as he grew and changed every week. Mom would write "Do Not Bend" on the envelope in several places!

Whomever got my mail would run up the stairs screaming, "Mike, you got another, 'Do Not Bend'" We all knew what that meant so several people would gather in the lush courtyard right outside the cafeteria and pass around a half-dozen more pictures of Chad looking left, Chad looking right, Chad sitting up, Chad standing up. You name it, Mom will deny this but she was encouraging me to come home in her subtle ways! The funny thing is, it worked!

I tell everyone that asks what was the best thing I have ever done? I tell them, "The second best thing I ever did was move to Berkeley." 

Their response is always, well then what was the best thing you ever did? I always reply, "I moved home." I say that not because of my friends I made in Berkeley and the growing I did on a personal level, but rather how my life has grown in so many ways since moving back, finishing my degree at the University of Minnesota and the changes my life has taken since I left Berkeley in 1975.

Another irony in this move was several years after I moved back and Chad graduated from college he moved to Southern California and has been there for many years now! It was fun for Kathy and Karen to see pictures of Chad now as a forty-two-year-old entrepreneur living in Southern California!

We shared stories of our memories of the fairly short time in our lives where we were actually together and how that school year has made lasting friendships that have lasted more than forty years!

I want to close with a picture of the three of us men who attended our dinner at Trader Vic's Restaurant in San Francisco when I took eight other friends and myself to a four-hour dinner for $150! We had a blast that night and stories abounded about who remembered what from that treat. I like this picture because the three of us all had cool 1970s hair!

Besides Mike Ross In his flashy velvet jacket and me was Doug Hamblin, Mike's roommate.

As always, click on the image to make it larger:

Like I said earlier, the four hours just flew by and I wish it could have lasted longer. I do not believe a minute went by when somebody was not talking, usually while somebody else was telling her or his memory of a particular story!

It always amazes me how all the stages of my life keep coming back in various ways by people who made a difference in that particular piece of my life. At 61, I have a hard time believing I have managed to live in so many places and acquire so many friendships on levels I cannot describe. I have managed to live more than forty-four years with a high-level spinal cord injury and I am feeling the aging process along with everything that goes with my injury. Yet, there are many days I feel like I can turn those numbers around and I feel 16!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

I Stopped Driving … Again!

About two years ago I started to feel uncomfortable and not in very good control of driving my van. I knew something had to be changed or I was not going to be safe on the road anymore. It started to scare me that I might cause an accident and hurt or even kill someone else or myself on the road.

It has been a difficult decision since I have been driving fully-modified vans since 1974 in Berkeley. I ordered my first van from a brochure at a medical equipment company in Minneapolis called Redi-Care. I did not know if I would be able to drive it or not and it was a tremendous leap of faith for us to order what was called a Med-Van. I was going to spend $13,000 on the vehicle I was not sure I would be able to drive!

In the winter of 1972 my father, my little brother, Rick and I went to Minneapolis to get tested at a driving school to see if I could drive a car. The instructor quickly found out I would not be able to drive a car, but with the right modifications I might be able to drive a van. That is when he gave me the address for Redi-Care. Fortunately, the owner of the company was in the store that Saturday morning and introduced me to my first van.

The first picture I want to show you is my current van of me driving two years ago. There are several more photographs of me driving and various parts of the van on my website.

Click on the image to make it larger:

There are many stories I would like to share and pictures to show of all six vans I have owned or leased; however, this post is not long enough to show them all! Suffice it to say, I have driven about 500,000 miles in six vehicles, three full-size vans and three minivans.

I want to show you another picture of me driving my first van in 1977 when my mom, dad, were on our way for me to speak at the athletic banquet in McLaughlin, South Dakota. It was a real honor for me to be asked to speak at their banquet since I only went to first and second grade in McLaughlin! Fourteen years later, I was asked to come back and address many people I had known from our three years in McLaughlin.

This picture shows my little brother, Chad watching me as I drove across the plains of Minnesota to drop him off at our uncle's farm so he could play with his cousin. I love the look of concentration on Chad's face! Of course, my mom took that picture!

When he was not standing behind me, he had two beanbag chairs to lounge on unrestricted in the back of the van. No child restraints for us in 1977. I am excited to tell you Chad is quite the entrepreneur and loving life in Southern California trying to get his patented Drum Wallet sold, among other adventures he is always pursuing. He and I are very much alike and communicate with cell phones, Facebook and keeping track of each other's activities.

The reason I wanted to put this post up is to show how my life has changed dramatically since my ability to drive has been lost. There have been a couple other times when I was unable to drive for extended periods of time. However, I eventually got my strength back and the stamina to drive several hundred miles at a time, speak for a day and drive home that night. Now, I need to take an attendant with me to do all of my personal cares and that can be a problem on occasion when I go for extended periods of time. I hope to make it back to Worthington in September for their annual Turkey Day celebration. It is always fun to be in Worthington during those couple of days.

I often get speaking engagements and book sales from people who constantly come up to me all day long. 

The reason I have not been posted since last November is I have not been able to sit up long enough during the day to work on putting up a good post. We tried something new today and after my acupuncture appointment this morning, my morning attendant laid me down and my evening attendant got me back up so I could write this post. So far, my sitting tolerance is good and I feel fine. Hopefully, I will do this more often and post on a more regular basis.

I want to close this post with one last picture of me riding as a passenger in my van.

As always, click on the photo to make it larger:

I know driving is a privilege and I was privileged enough to have driven for almost forty years. I have friends and relatives who have never been able to drive since their injury onset or their entire lives. I am not complaining about losing this privilege; I just want you to know how our lives change and how it can affect people around them. The loss of some independence is difficult for all of us to deal with. As we grow older and start to lose some of our faculties we may all come to the conclusion it is time to turn over our keys to someone else!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Black Lives Matter!

Now that I have your attention, I want to tell you about one black man who has had a tremendous influence on my life. Shortly after I moved to this apartment in mid August 2012 I was coming down the sidewalk after running a few errands to get little things we could not find in our packing.

Ahead of me was a thin, small black man who was using his phone. He did not hear me when I asked him if I could get by. I kind of snuck up on him and scared him. I apologized for scaring him and went on my way. I went around the building and came in the front door as Robert was coming in the backdoor. We did not know each other lived in the building. We laughed and introduced ourselves. That was the first time I met Robert Foster and we became fast friends at that moment.

Robert lived in the building with his brother, Rodney and was his primary Personal Care Attendant (PCA) and shortly came to work for me as well.

He had an infectious smile and loud, booming voice. From behind my apartment walls, I could hear if Robert was in the lobby.

He became part of my extended family and we did a number of things together including making a trip to the annual Smith pheasant hunt in South Dakota. Here is a photograph taken in 2013 during that trip:

 As always, click on the image to make it larger:

We were in the barn on the farm my uncle is renovating and Robert was teasing me about something trying to get me to smile and I was not going to give him the satisfaction!

He read my book, enjoyed it and we had many discussions which came from points he found interesting. He told me he learned a lot from me and that meant a great deal. I try to mentor and teach just about everyone I come in contact with. We had a great connection and love of all things sports especially basketball. We meshed from the very beginning and the race difference went away from the very beginning.

He loved to play basketball and often shared stories of when he played at North High School in Minneapolis. We would often watch football and basketball games together and SportsCenter was always on when he would get me up in the morning.

Robert loved life and despite overcoming many tragedies with losing his daughter because a kidney transplant did not take, a mother suffering from Alzheimer's disease, his brother being paralyzed and struggling, a brother with AIDS, just to name a few of the tragedies he is overcome in these little more than three years I knew him. He had a strong faith and inner drive we all can aspire to have!

He also liked his Nikes! He had around two hundred pair many of which have never been taken out of the box! He even had a storage shed full of his shoes and a few other assorted items.

A couple years ago, he was struggling with a car and needed $1200 to get a used car to get him through the winter. I put my old financial planning hat on to try and see if we could straighten out his financial situation. The first thing he did was open a checking account at the bank just up the street. Then, he got a credit card which he used sparingly just to establish his credit.

Shortly after that, he went up the road a ways to an Acura dealer and bought a very nice car for around $6,000. He loved that car and it was always in immaculate condition. They gave him a good deal and treated them very well all because he was in the system now and not living from paycheck to paycheck. He was also building up a small investment.

I am very proud to say he learned how to use the system to his advantage from me.

The other great thing he had going for him was the love of his life, Lisa. They were always together and shared many experiences that helped him get through all of the tragedy he was dealing with. They were soul mates and found each other and had a great time together.

He was like a member of our family and even called my mother, Moms! They also got along great together. We teased each other we were brothers from different mothers. We also referred to ourselves as ebony and ivory, chocolate and vanilla, salt-and-pepper. You get the idea about the young man growing up in the inner-city and connecting with another man who grew up living in small towns across the Midwest. We came from very different backgrounds; however, that did not matter. We overcame those differences from the very beginning.

I am not positive about Robert's exact cause of death, I just know he went very quickly these last few months and had something to do with renal and liver failure. I have a hard time believing he is gone. It will hit me at his service on December seventh.

I know I need to go through the grieving process and it will take some time as I am still in denial. I wish you well in your next world, Robert. Peace be with you and we must take solace in the fact your pain is gone. I will miss you my friend.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Do Not Ever Break Your Neck!

I usually follow that statement with, "because it's not worth the good parking spots."

In this case, I am referring to relying on Metro Mobility to get me from my apartment to Williams Arena on time so I could watch the new version of Richard Pitino's Golden Gophers play the University of Louisiana, Monroe.

I was supposed to be picked up at 2 PM and arrive at 2:30 PM to meet my ticket holder sharer, Phil Echert. On the way, we had to make a stop at the Mall of America to drop off another rider. We did not leave the Mall of America until 2:30! I had this sinking feeling we were not going to make it on time!

We arrived just in time to see the opening tip! After the game, my ride was a half hour late and it took me little more than an hour to get home. I understand the need for multiple riders on these dial-a-ride services; however, I wish they had a better way of letting us know they were going to be late or at least know we were not going to be the only riders.


I enjoy the freedom of getting in my van, driving to where I want to go and coming home when I want to. My van has not been driven for several months because of my bedridden status and I was forced to use the dial-a-ride service. I hope to get my van in working order by the next game.

By the way, the Gophers won 67-56. It was not a pretty game, but a win is a win. At one point late in the second half the Gophers were 2 for 20 from the three-point line! The Gophers had gone on a poor shooting streak and let ULM back in the game. At one point,ULM led 51-50. Then the Gophers went on a 17 to 5 run to win the game. It would not have looked good on their tournament resume to have fallen to a team like them.

I finally arrived home after dropping off another rider who was fortunately fairly close to my destination. Amed was following his GPS religiously and I told him to turn it off so I could better get him back home.

It turns out the service had me going to a different address than my beginning address and after a couple wrong turns, he listened to me and got me back home. He thanked me for  telling to him how to get home the shortest way possible. We had a nice conversation and I appreciated his willingness to listen to my directions. He had an interesting story about his country of origin from Syria seventeen years ago! He was glad he was not there now!
 
Since I had recorded the Vikings – Raiders game, Mom and I watched the game in its entirety; skipping through the commercials was fun to watch a game! 

The Vikings are now 7-3 and sit atop the National Conference Central Division since Green Bay missed a last second field goal to lose to the Lions. It has been a long time since the Vikings were in this position and we will find out how good they are Sunday when Green Bay comes to TCF Bank Stadium to see which team will sit atop the division at least temporarily. It will make it interesting to see who wins in the regular-season finale at Green Bay!

Adrian Peterson had a tremendous day yesterday and the Vikings need him to run like that again this weekend. Both teams have their own set of injuries and we will see how that plays out on Sunday.

As always, I tend to stray away from my original intent of this post. If you are frequent reader of my blog you know that is something I do often!

I will close now by saying, "Go Gophers, and Go Vikings!"

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Remember Me?

I used to write a blog post about once a week until mid-June. I abruptly stopped when I was stranded in my chair on two different nights by the company called Custom Care who failed to send an attendant by to put me in bed, which resulted in me being bedridden since my pressure sores were opened to a degree I could not sit up in my chair!

I ended up in an emergency room on June 19th and spent the next eight days in the hospital until I was able to find another home healthcare agency who would be more reliable in getting me personal-care attendants (PCA's). My doctor would not allow me to be released from the hospital until I had a care company who could supply my needs.

Little did I know when my social worker arranged for this company to do my cares that she was going to retire as soon as she closed out all of her cases! The new company president showed up making all kinds of promises that I knew he could not keep. My doctor released me that Saturday and I have been in bed ever since! My only trips out of my room were a once a month visit to the wound clinic to have my doctor check on the progress, order new supplies and send me home for another month of R&R in my bed!

On my last visit, the wounds are getting good enough so he allowed me to start sitting up a couple hours a day. The first few days I was experiencing a dramatic loss in strength and stamina. I am still weak and frustrated to not be able to be up in my chair for very long periods of time.

I have good people helping me now who are going the extra mile to take care of my increased needs.

I thoroughly enjoy watching the Minnesota Twins and their run for a playoff position! It has kept me going along with countless hours of watching television. My summer and now early fall is gone and I am hoping to be ready to start going to my Gopher basketball games in a few short weeks.

I am attaching a photograph taken on June 20th with my brothers, Rick and Chad when they came to visit me in the hospital in a break from our niece's wedding that day. I regret not being able to be there very much.

Click on the image to make it larger:

The bottom line is I am back to a degree! I am excited to get back to a degree of ability I had before this latest setback. I have much more to write on this subject of my summer vacation which lasted well into autumn; however, I need to lie down as my time is about up!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Forty Years And Counting!

Forty years ago I was a student at the University of California in Berkeley. I received a letter from Nancy Crewe, PhD at the University of Minnesota asking me if I would be interested in being interviewed for a longitudinal study she was starting on life after spinal cord injury (SCI)?

She asked me to call her with my response and if I was interested, she would come along with one of her students and interview me in my dorm room. I called her and agreed to meet with the two of them in our study room down the hall from my room. As I remember, we talked for several hours and she had many questions regarding my life to that point, expectations, and an inordinate amount of form questions.

Shortly after our discussion, I moved back to Minneapolis to a job I had created selling modified vans for a company that had sold me my first van. I was also supposed to meet people who had recently suffered spinal cord injuries and needed equipment like wheelchairs, shower chairs and various other equipment prescribed by their doctors as they left rehabilitation.

I ran into Dr. Crewe one day in the old Rehab 7 Unit at the University. We chatted for a while when she told me she was happy to know I was now at the University and if I wanted to continue to be a part of her study?

Obviously, I did and did my first few interviews in their offices at the hospital. It was during that time I met Jim Krause who was one of Nancy's PhD candidates. Several years later Nancy moved to Michigan State University but continued to remain an integral part of the program. Jim remained at the U and once he received his PhD moved to Shepherd Center in Atlanta. After spending some time there he moved to the current location at the Medical University of South Carolina. That is where the program is run out of today and Jim is the director working with a fine staff of people who were instrumental in putting on our event this last weekend.

Saturday I took part in a small roundtable discussion group with eighteen people, many of them I have known from being long time Minnesota Gopher basketball fans. It was fun seeing people outside of Williams Arena.

At one point, Jim asked if there were any new topics we would like to address as the study moves on and in to different areas.

I mentioned studying Eastern medicine and how alternative, preventative medicine is working its way into the Western model as East meets West. In the twelve years I have been receiving acupuncture, healing touch, guided imagery, herbal therapy, hypnosis and others the traditional Western medical community has begun to integrate Eastern ideas. I believe it is a good thing as Western philosophy begins to practice a more holistic approach as they do in the East.

The second day was a celebration of forty years since the program has started. Jim told me of the one hundred initial participants, fifty-five are still involved! I believe those are extraordinary numbers when we were all told our life expectancies were extremely short. "9-3-71" is often the answer I give when someone asks me my date of onset. In my case, in the fall of 1971 the doctors asked my family to come down to the waiting room so they could speak with them. One doctor told my family my life expectancy was nine years! I guess I beat those numbers! Others had even more horror stories then I did. 

I'm attaching a photograph of the people at the event at the Nicolet Island Pavilion with the forty-year survivors and the fifty plus behind us: 

As always, click on the image to enlarge it: 

That is Jim and me in the middle of the group. I had to wear my Minnesota shirt since I graduated from there in 1980. It still seems hard to believe it has been thirty-five years since I graduated from college!

The next picture has all of the people who were at the event as more and more people are being added to their studies:

Again, click on the image to enlarge it:

Between an ongoing slide show behind the very accessible stage, slides were shown of statistics from the study, several slides of participants (one of mine included), speeches were given, awards were given, I had a great piece of Minnesota Walleye and much reminiscing, meeting new people, mentioning people who have left us, and I believe everyone would tell you they had an enjoyable afternoon and evening. 

As I understand it, this blog post will be in some way linked on the MUSC website so it will be available to everyone in attendance.

I would like to share one particularly interesting fact I got out of all of the storytelling that took place over the two days. The longest person I knew before this weekend who has survived severe spinal cord injury was fifty-two years. I found out Saturday the longest anyone knows of right now who has survived a spinal cord injury is fifty-eight years! That gives me a new goal to shoot for! Who knows what the next ten years will bring to survivors of spinal cord injury?

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later, and I do mean later,

Mike
 

What Did You Do Yesterday?

Several years ago I told myself I know there is always going to be something else waiting in line I have to deal with. Yesterday was the latest in the series of events that define my life.

Longtime readers of this blog and personal friends know I get issues every once in a while I get to address that are related to my injury and follow-up events, which detract from my life.

The last couple of weeks I have known there was another infection brewing in my urinary tract and/or pressure sores that are almost healed. My visiting nurse took a urine specimen into the lab to have a urinalysis done. I also had a complete line of blood work done.

I did not know the urinalysis needed a urine culture as well. When the results came back, my infectious disease doctor wanted a urine culture as well. Wednesday, my visiting nurse took a urine culture into the lab to have the urine culture drawn.

The results came back positive, so I had to spend yesterday afternoon and early evening in the hospital getting a midline IV inserted into my right arm and get my first dosage of Gentamicin.  Here is my right arm for the next ten days:

 

Click on the image to make it larger:

I have a constant urinary tract infection because of a fifteen-inch conduit called an ileostomy a doctor put into me in 1984. My current urologist told me the conduits he put in now are about three inches long. Much of his business is repairing the work my first urologist did on me in 1980 and again in 1984.

The butcher who installed my first ileostomy told me in so many words it would have to be replaced every few years. All he was doing was covering his tracks because my current urologist who also removed my left kidney told me when he puts in an ileostomy is in there for good!

He also told me he was afraid to take out my current conduit because it was scarred in so badly he was afraid I would not make it off the table if he tried to do the surgery! I appreciate his honesty and candor with me. He is the kind of guy with the confidence and ability all surgeons should aspire to.

As a result of having this bacteria producing conduit, I am pretty much always taking one, two or even three antibiotics to keep the powerful bacteria from growing. It is only when the heavy hitting bacteria grows I need to take an IV antibiotic which destroys all of the bacteria in my system and affects my body flora that I need to get IV treatment. When it destroys all the bacteria in my system, it takes a while to get some of the good bacteria growing again.

Of course an issue like this always happens on a Friday. We managed to get everything set up and delivered this morning so my visiting nurse could infuse me with the antibiotic, which will last for the next eight days. It takes an hour to infuse so I am stuck in one position for that hour while a little inflatable bubble releases the antibiotic into my system. You can see the needle on the right end of the midline.

Here is the fully inflated bubble:

Once again, click on the image to make it larger:

When the weather is as cold as it is today and supposedly tonight is supposed to be the coldest night of the year so far, I do not mind staying in. It will be interesting to see how I manage to function when I leave to go to the last two Gopher basketball games! Although, after today's performance I am not sure if I really want to brave the cold and see two more games like today's game!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Just Think

Last Sunday the Minneapolis StarTribune published an article in their science+health section entitled "THE POWER OF THOUGHT" and addressed the issue of spinal cord injuries and implanting a computer chip in the skull of a young man enabling him to think and move his paralyzed arm.

I have always said, "I know they will find a way for people with spinal cord injuries to regain the function of their paralyzed limbs." Actually, I believe it was more like, they will find a way for us to walk again!

The article was originally published in the Washington Post and was written by Jim Tankersley. They talked about the first patient trying to use a computer chip implanted in his brain at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center. It was invented by scientists at Battelle, a nonprofit, research organization.

From what I gathered from the article, they needed to embed a chip into the brain that "reads" commands from the brain and transfers them to his arm, which is wrapped in a sleeve of electrodes around his arm and they stimulate the muscle fibers in his hand to move.

There are several pictures in the article and it is in the beginning stages, but doctors involved are very encouraged by their initial results. The idea of bypassing the spinal cord by using thought technology is still in its infancy. I am excited to see where it goes from here.

The subject of the article is four years post injury. From this article and other articles I have read, it is getting more and more to the point where the length of time between injury and actual retraining and reusing paralyze limbs is getting longer and longer.

This is just the latest article I have reviewed which discusses alternative ways doctors are attempting to get people with spinal cord injuries to be able to at least function at a somewhat higher level than they are today.

It would be wonderful to get to a point where I could use my hands on my own instead of having to use various assistive devices to help me function with my hands. That would just be the first step. I know processes like these take a long time. I also know there are several people studying various alternatives to getting spinal cord injured persons more function back. It is happening all over the world, and people are doing amazing things. This is just the latest, and who knows, possibly the greatest attempt at getting function to return.

There are always going to be very smart people working from different positions and different techniques trying to get people with spinal cord injuries to function at higher levels. That is the exciting part for me as I close in on forty-three years of living with my injury.

One of the things it frustrates me is when I am constantly told we just have not seen that Mike, because most spinal cord injuries do not live as long as you have! Right now, the record for longevity after a spinal cord injury I know of is fifty-one years. That is not long enough. I want to see more than that. I am sure there are a number of other people out there who feel the same way I do.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Today Is Martin Luther King Day

If you were not already aware because you went to your mailbox and found nothing, today is a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I know a lot of people were speaking about Dr. King and his accomplishments in the Civil Rights Movement.

There have been events all day long, all over the country commemorating Dr. King, and rightfully so. He was a great man who accomplished much before he was taken from us much too soon. 1968 was not a good year in America. His assassination on April 4, 1968 was just the beginning of a horrific year.

I want to focus this post on another Civil Rights leader who was right there with Dr. King. His name was Leon Sullivan. He was a Baptist Minister for the Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia. Dr. Sullivan took a small, struggling church of sixty people and turned it into a congregation of six thousand! His fiery sermons brought people to hear him as he became known as the "Lion from Zion" and made his congregations one of the largest in the nation by the time he stopped preaching there in 1988. 

Dr. Sullivan died of leukemia April 24, 2001 at the age of 78. The reason I want to make you aware of this inspiring individual is I got to hear him speak for a brief moment following my keynote presentation for the Minneapolis Native American OIC graduation ceremony on October 23, 1998.

Let me set the stage: Jennie Lightfoot was the executive director of the OIC and asked me to give the commencement address that day. I had known Jennie from my days of working for as a trainer for Honeywell several years before that. Jennie knew of my experience living on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the early 1960s when my dad was a teacher and coach in a small town called McLaughlin, South Dakota. In the interviewing process with Jennie, I told her of my experience living in McLaughlin. I mentioned a couple names of athletes my father had taught and coached when we lived on the reservation.

One of those names I mentioned was Willard Male Bear. Jennie giggled and said, "Do you mean Willie?"

I told her we had never referred to him as Willie, but yes, that is probably the same guy! As it turned out, Willie was the same man who used to babysit for us when he was in high school in McLaughlin. I love small world stories like that!

As Dr. Sullivan was escorted into the banquet room towards the head tables, he was asking to sit by the keynote speaker. Dr. Sullivan had recently suffered a stroke and the right side of his body was extremely compromised. He came in with a gentleman supporting his right side and walking with a cane in his left hand. As he sat down next to me, as many victims of strokes will do, he kind of dropped that last foot or so into the chair.

Everybody was making a big deal out of this distinguished older gentleman who was obviously struggling from the effects of his stroke. We sat through lunch and people wanted to meet him and shake his hand. It was fun watching him interact with everyone that came up to the table and greeted him. He was very gracious as his meal was interrupted several times.

Once the program started, I noticed he was scribbling notes with his left hand in the margins on the program. I thought to myself, "This old guy is writing his speech as he sitting here." Little did I know who this "old guy" was and what he was doing.

They had made a temporary, nice, long ramp to get up to the stage for me. I am sure it met ADA Standards. I went up the ramp, with my wireless, lavalier microphone ready to go, and gave about a thirty minute presentation that brought a standing ovation to the banquet hall.

Then, Clyde Bellecourt made me a Sioux Warrior, wrapped me in a blanket and four tribal members sang a traditional song in my honor as they sat around a bass drum beating it rhythmically. It was quite a moment and one I will never forget.

I came down off the stage, and as Dr. Sullivan was being helped up, he winked at me and said, "Let's see if I still have it." 

Dr. Sullivan was standing at the back of the platform and Clyde started to introduce him. As Clyde Bellecourt it is known to do, he can start ranting and no one really knows how long he will go. He started in that day and Dr. Sullivan was getting a little weak kneed waiting for Clyde to finish his introduction. You could hear people at the head tables telling someone to get Dr. Sullivan I chair because no one knew how long Clyde would go and Dr. Sullivan was leaning up against the wall.

No sooner did Dr. Sullivan get seated in the chair when Clyde stopped his tirade, said to the audience, "With that ladies and gentlemen, please let me introduce Dr. Leon Sullivan!" You should have seen the look Dr. Sullivan shot at Clyde. It was precious.

As Dr. Sullivan was helped to the podium, he laid his program on the podium and adjusted his glasses a bit to try and read the scribbling he had put on his program. He was struggling. As he started to speak, something happened I have never witnessed before and will probably never witness again. The spirit literally came into him for about seven or eight minutes and he was whole again!

I have never sat in a black Baptist church listening to a good old-fashioned Baptist preacher preach fire and brimstone. But that day, for a few minutes I got to experience God's presence enter into a rare and committed preacher of the word. I will never forget as he was in full stride, speaking with the spirit moving him and he slammed his right fist on the podium and made a statement that started with tremendous force, "My brother Martin … " He continued for a couple minutes and then just as quickly as the spirit came into him, it left. It was an experience like nothing I have ever seen.

As Dr. Sullivan was helped back to his chair, I leaned over to him and said, "Dr. Sullivan, you've still got it!" I gave him a big smile and patted his shoulder.

Dr. Sullivan smiled back at me and replied, "I just can't keep it very long anymore."

Wow! I will never forget my experience with one of the great Civil Rights leaders of our time who marched along with Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson and all the rest.

I learned in a hurry, "You can't judge a book by its cover."

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Talk About A Great Christmas Story

It was almost a year ago already when Owen Groesser was featured on SportsCenter, but the story does not seem to go away. They played it again today and it seems to be a story that keeps on giving and giving.

If you have not heard the story about young Owen and his heroics on the basketball court last January, it is a heartwarming story of not only a boy with Down syndrome, but a story of sportsmanship, teamwork, hard work, dedication and the love of my favorite sport, basketball. It is also about the power of Twitter and how powerful that medium has become in a fairly short time.

In fact, the Twitter # (hashtag) became so popular it caught the attention of Scott Van Pelt who put the story on his SportsCenter Top 10 Stories of the Day at Number 10. The next night, it was the Number 1 Story! I do not have a Twitter account yet, but I am thinking it may be time to get one!

I was not able to download the SportsCenter original video, but I have a video from the local TV station in Rochester Hills, Michigan I believe you will appreciate:

Just click here:

If that does not bring up the story, try this link: http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/sports/eighth-grader-with-down-syndrome-hits-memorable-three-pointer-in-first-game

Once you watch the expression on this boy's face, you will be hooked! He was in another world, and it was wonderful to see how excited he got as he was interviewed with his father. In one interview I watched as the mother and father were interviewed. I do not know who was more excited, young Owen or his parents? Describing the games brought both parents to tears.

It is wonderful stories like this that make me excited to do this blog. I have often said, "I never know where my inspiration will come from to put up a post." I certainly did not expect to be posting this story on Christmas Eve.

I want to close by wishing all of my Christian friends a Merry Christmas tomorrow. I would like to leave you with my favorite Christmas lights display. Enjoy because a lot of effort went into this person's expression of the holiday spirit:

Click on the image to make it larger:

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike 

P.S. When did the pound sign become a hashtag? And, what is it for?

Our Ever-changing Technology Part II

If you read my last post on changing technology and how rapidly we are seeing the entire world change around us, you know how I feel about some of the changes. After reading that post, one of my subscribers who happens to be a very high-level quadriplegic with no arm function, sent me an article showing this next high-tech toy soon to be on the market that will have the capability to grow that change even more dramatically.

It is called Google Glass and looks like this:

As always, click on the image to make it larger:

According to articles in New Mobility magazine, Popular Science magazine and a Wikipedia entry, Google Project Glass had originally been designed for paraplegics and quadriplegics who cannot use their arms as a way to maneuver their wheelchairs with voice recognition software. It is expected to be released to the general public sometime in 2014.

Initially, the idea was to wear them as you see them in the picture. However, they are still working on a version where someone could wear them with prescription glasses. They are even working on a version that would come with your prescription glasses built into the unit itself.

I can see tremendous opportunities for everyone, not just people with disabilities to benefit from an item like this.

However, I see a huge downside in this technology and how it could be misused by that multitasking person who is already trying to drive, text, eat a sandwich and keep his or her children behaved on the way to school during the morning commute.

As if distracted drivers do not cause enough traffic accidents already, just imagine what introducing this technology could do to that distracted driver in the lane next to you!

I am all for this technology and its appropriate applications for people with disabilities and/or able-bodied people in the workplace, or in the comfort of his or her own home. It does scare me to think of how it has a huge potential to be misused and will cause people to be even more distracted from their already busy lives.

Like I stated in my last post, I am all for new technology and the changes we see coming. But, like everything else, if it is not used properly, I see some tremendous downside to this new idea.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Spinal Cord Injury Study

As many of you know, I spent part of the 1974 and all of the 1974–'75 school year going to school at the University of California, Berkeley. That first year, I lived in a special residence program for students with disabilities at Cowell Memorial Hospital, which was the student health service on campus. The third floor had one wing with twelve students of which ten of us had spinal cord injuries, and four of us had broken our necks playing football.

It was an excellent program and way ahead of its time for students with severe disabilities attending classes, living on campus and a pioneer in helping to get educations for students with disabilities.


When we left for summer vacation, they closed the door and integrated us into the general population of the dormitories. At the time, that was unheard of. But, Berkeley had Ed Roberts! Ed was a pioneer for the disability community, which started with that residence program.


When I came back to Berkeley in the fall of 1974, my dad and uncle came with me. We dropped Terry off at McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento, and dad spent a few days before he flew back to Worthington. 


I got settled in to Room 118 Putnam Hall in Unit 1 of the dormitories just off the campus. Sometime during that year, professor Nancy Crewe, PhD, from the University of Minnesota who was beginning a Longitudinal Spinal Cord Injury Study, contacted me and she wanted to know if I wanted to be a part of it.


I was more than anxious to be a part of it, and Nancy and one of her PhD students flew to Berkeley to interview me for the first part of the study. While Nancy was at the University of Minnesota, she interviewed me several times in person, or sent out forms for her study on our successes, failures, frustrations, education, employment, general health and a host of other concerns.


It was always interesting to know I was a part of a study of such importance she would fly halfway across the country to meet me for the first time. Once I moved back to Minneapolis, I worked with her and one of her PhD students, Jim Krause. Jim is also a C5-6 quad, and we have many similarities.


Nancy eventually moved to Michigan State University and left the study in Jim and his associates very capable hands. Once Jim received his PhD, he moved on to Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta where he worked for several years on the study. Eventually, Jim moved to the Medical University of South Carolina where the survey is being worked on today.


That is what brought me to this blog post and the meeting Richard Aust, Program Coordinator II, from the Medical University of South Carolina. Tuesday, we spent three hours with four participants in the study, of which I was the only one who has been with it since the beginning.


We had an interesting conversation, and he had an agenda with questions he wanted to get through. There were periods during our discussion where I made it rather difficult to keep on his agenda!


He did come up to me during our break and thanked me for my input. I believe he got a little more from me than what he was expecting! I told him, "I thought that is why you wanted me here was to give my opinion. Am I correct?" I gave him a polite smile and he agreed with me. The entire three hours was videotaped so Jim will be able to see just what took place.


It just so happened, I had several of my books with me and gave the other three participants and Richard a copy to share with Jim. Jim already has read it in ebook form, but I want them to have paperback versions and see if we can get one version or the other into the hands of the remaining participants.


At one point, I asked Richard how many of the original one hundred participants were still involved in the program. Care to take a guess? I was pleasantly surprised when he said, "Forty-two of the original one hundred are still participating!" After nearly forty years of living with spinal cord injury, 42% of us are still alive and able to fog a mirror!


One of the participants had his personal care attendant with him, and I noticed she was already reading the book before our session was through. I received an email from him the next day, and he said his attendant thought my book was "Wonderful!" He said he was going to read it now. I will take that endorsement any day!


On my way out of the building, I ran into another friend and his wife who were waiting to go into the next session. I am anxious to see what this round of information will tell the researchers about our study. 


I look forward to your comments.


Later,


Mike

Cheerios And Chidren

This commercial came across my cyber desk the other day:

View it by clicking here.

It has caused a lot of controversy because the family is biracial. Obviously, this particular version has not been seen that often; however, other versions with discussions following can run up to six, seven, eight minutes or longer.

It was not that long ago when biracial or interracial marriages were outlawed in many states. Today they are allowed in every state. It was not until 1967 when the Supreme Court deemed anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, with many states choosing to legalize interracial marriage at much earlier dates. That is according to Wikipedia. If you want to read the entire Wikipedia entry, click here.

I find it appalling how certain groups of people still have a problem with miscegenation in the United States in the year 2013! There are enough of them to create such an uproar that Cheerios and General Mills decided not to run the comments after their online commercial.

If that is the case, do those groups feel the same way about people with disabilities marrying? I know people who are against people with developmental disabilities being married.

What about the LGBT community and the recent Supreme Court decision allowing Gay Marriage? Look how long it took that group and the fight they had struggled to gain equality in marriage.

Are there always going to be haters out there? I already know the answer to my question. What can be done about it? Anything?

I try to do my part in speeches when the opportunity arises where I can make a comment on the subject. That rarely happens when I can get into the subject very deeply. Occasionally, I may get a question from an audience member that allows me a platform to give my opinion on certain subjects. I have to be sensitive to my meeting planner's goals and objectives, so I cannot stray too far into subjects I might like to discuss.

I look forward to your comments. I hope this leads to an interesting discussion.

Later,

Mike

I Can Drive Again!

As some of you may or may not know, I had an accident in my van on April eleventh. I was going up the freeway following at a safe distance when I started to see the brake lights go on in cars in front of me. I started to slow down, and then all of a sudden the car in front of me came to an abrupt stop. I tried to stop to avoid hitting him, but my brakes just would not let me stop in time. So, I swerved off the freeway only to find a small car stopped who had run out of gas.
I could not stop and hit him squarely in the back. My airbags deployed and the front end of my van was destroyed. There was a light mist falling and I talked to the Minnesota State Trooper who asked me what happened. After I gave him my account of the accident, the paramedics were there and managed to get my chair unlocked and pulled me back away from the driver’s area.

I had a bad gash on my right knee from the hand control mechanism underneath the steering column. Needless to say, I did not feel it; but there was a nice sized pool of blood on the floor right below where my knee had been. They slid me out the driver side sliding door and left my wheelchair in the van when they took me to Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC). It is the closest Level I Trauma Center to where I was on 35W. For those of you outside the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, yes, that is the same 35W Freeway where the bridge came down August 1, 2007. On a completely unrelated side note, my first post on this blog is titled, "When Bridges Fall" when I told about my day when the bridge fell. If you are interested, you can read that post by clicking here.


I spent a night in the hospital after getting my knee stitched up in the emergency room. It was a very ugly seventeen stitches since the wound went in all directions and all the way down to the patella. I got a charge out of one of the paramedics in the ambulance when he said; "I can see bone so it's a deep cut."

Whereupon, I responded, "That must be the patella then."

You should have seen the look on his face when I knew what bone he was talking about. He responded by saying, "Uh ... yeah, that is the patella."

After getting my van back from the body shop several weeks later, it still was not in good operating order, as the brakes did not work very well. I was having a hard time getting home that day from the body shop up the street I live on a little more than thirty blocks from my house.

I could not turn the wheel and get it past my apparently much larger abdomen. It seems I had gained a good amount of girth in those five weeks! I found out later the brackets that held my lock down on the wheelchair had shifted in the accident and caused me to sit closer to the steering wheel so I was unable to turn it.

The van sat in my parking lot until May twenty-first when my attendant and I took it to Rollx Vans so they could look at the special modifications and see if the van was indeed drivable.

Finally, after more than two months and $2500 more repairs, (the total repair costs were just under $18,000), Robert and I went out to Rollx Vans and got my van. After more than three months and being dependent on the independent haulers to get me to them from appointments, I am driving again. The brakes work great now! It took a brake booster, a few other parts and a new master cylinder, which needed to be sent from Detroit to Rollx, and then off to Idaho to be modified and back to Rollx, it finally arrived back at Rollx when they called me and told me they would be able to look at it on July fifteenth.

The service technician who called me, told me I could bring my van out at any time around the fifteenth. I told him you have had it since May twenty-first, and he was completely surprised! That did not sit very well with me!

Anyway, I got it back and drove it to my acupuncture appointment yesterday. It is now sitting right outside my window where it belongs, waiting for my next trip. Here is an old picture of me driving from about ten years ago: this picture is also in my book and on my website. Click on the image to make it larger:

I am very excited to have my van back and the degree of independence it affords me. For those of you that know me well, you know how important my independence is to me.

I was once told many years ago I would never drive. This is my sixth van and I have driven approximately one-half million miles!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike