“Do you want to live?”
That’s a question I never anticipated having to answer, but in reality, had been preparing for my entire life.
I was born and raised in Cleveland, a gritty Midwestern town with a quiet confidence, a bit of an edge and a strong backbone. My parents raised me to reflect those same values. A product of a Catholic education, I was disciplined when needed, but praised even more. I was taught to believe in myself, to work hard and to remember that life can be unfair and doesn’t owe me a thing.
But there I was, 33 years old and in the prime of my life, being asked if I wanted to live.
I was lying in a Kalamazoo hospital bed, hooked up to beeping machines, a plethora of plastic tubes, all poking out of my body from areas where there shouldn’t have been any holes.
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My neck was broken. Shattered. The first six cervical vertebrae decimated from the impact of my head slamming into the shallow, muddy bottom of Coldwater Lake, a mere 30 minutes away via Life Flight.
It had happened a few days earlier. However, with all the sedatives coursing through my veins, it was impossible for me to know if it had been a day or a month ago that I was enjoying the sunny afternoon at a summer cottage. All I knew was that I wanted to be back there, swimming in those familiar surroundings. Even though I lacked the ability to speak, others could read my lips each time as I asked if I could now go back to the lake.
“Not right now, Scott,” someone softly told me, just before the voice took on a more solemn tone. “The doctor is going to come in now and talk to you about some things. It’s important you pay attention and listen to what he tells you. He has some questions for you.”
“Do you want to live?” was the question the surgeon asked with such a matter-of-fact tone. I had a C3 complete injury — which, as he had just explained, meant I would never walk again. But much worse, it meant I would never move any part of my body again, I would never be able to breathe on my own again, I might never be able to eat and swallow again or spend extended periods of time out of bed. Worst of all, my life as I knew it would no longer be a reality. Everything would now be different.
The way he left the words to just linger in the air suggested that there was really only one logical answer to his question. I mean, honestly, who would ever want to live a life like that?
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As a young boy, my father used to drive me to my weekly swimming lessons at the YWCA. Without fail, every car ride brought with it a chance to listen to a cassette recording of the “Rocky” original motion picture soundtrack. More times than not, “Gonna Fly Now” was rewound and played over and over. My dad would tell me to visualize myself swimming in the pool, being strong and making it all the way across to the other side — which, to a 5-year-old, seemed like trying to swim across Lake Erie. Yet I always made it.
It was more of the same thing driving to baseball practices, football games, basketball tournaments and whatever other athletic endeavors I found myself involved with throughout my teenage years. That constant message of his was always in the vehicle with the two of us. “Believe in yourself. Know that you can accomplish more than you think you can. Tell yourself that you will.”
My parents weren’t in the hospital room with me at the time the doctor gave me the ultimatum. However, all their years of constant support and affirmation of the positive now played through my brain, stuck on repeat and reminding me that this is still my life. I also know that the Holy Spirit was right there, giving me the strength to utter the only spoken word I did for those first few weeks.
“Yes.”
I wanted to live. I was not done with my life, nor had I accomplished the goals I set out to accomplish. However, the future was definitely much more unclear, and there was no way to know if those goals would ever be realized. What I did know was that there were suddenly new goals in front of me, ones that would prove much more meaningful: get my body strong again; learn to breathe on my own again; work hard to gain independence.
These days, when I find myself in front of an audience sharing my story of perseverance, I make it a point to stress the fact that my situation is no different than anyone else’s. Human resiliency is an amazing, powerful thing that I never fully understood until I was faced with incredible adversity. I truly believe that everyone’s spirit is just as strong, but unfortunately not everyone chooses to accept that.
I found out the hard way how true that old cliché about not being in control of our lives really is. None of us can control what happens to us, but we can control our attitude and how we choose to respond to whatever it is that occurs. Today, I subscribe to a different cliché, the one about how it all starts with the right attitude. Because it does.
Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all recipe that helps someone rise above the hardships. I think a lot of it depends on how one has lived his or her life up until that point when adversity strikes. The collection of experiences and outcomes we have endured over the course of our lives become the tools and instructions for how we deal with what comes next. It’s never too late to start practicing a positive attitude.
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There will always be good days and bad days. Staying positive, especially in the face of constant adversity, is certainly by no means easy. But it is a choice. And if that choice is cultivated into a habit, it becomes ingrained in the psyche and ultimately becomes part of your behavior.
Life doesn’t owe us anything. Actually, it’s us that owes life our best. These days, for now, my best just happens to be from a wheelchair.
Scott Fedor suffered a broken neck and was left paralyzed from the neck down in a 2009 diving accident. In 2011 he founded Getting Back Up, a nonprofit that assists spinal cord-injured individuals with exercise-based therapy and adaptable products. He is an advocate member of the Adversity 2 Advocacy Alliance nonprofit which promotes turning personal challenges into service to others. He also serves as a Board Member for, LEAP, a nonprofit which assists individuals living with disabilities. Mr. Fedor holds a B.S. in Ffnance from Lehigh University, where he also studied Mandarin Chinese, and an M.B.A. from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Today, Scott is a motivational speaker and resides in Westlake, Ohio.
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How One Paralyzed Man Chose to Live His Best Life — From a Wheelchair originally appeared on usnews.com
