IMPACT

    One child was injured, but it had a ripple effect that touched them all...

    I started writing a story about my life when I was 19 years old. It was the only outlet I had to express the horrible feelings sustaining a spinal cord injury created within me without worrying about how others would feel about the way I felt. 

     As the years passed and I periodically reviewed my writings, I began to realize that the thoughts I had been putting down on paper were indicative of the stages I was going through in regard to my paralysis at that specific time in my life. 

     At first, my writings were those of a victim crying out to understand why she was being forced to live the life she was enduring. Years later, the victim I was learned to accept her circumstances and my writing began to explore how my injury had affected the lives around me. As a grown woman, I looked back on the months immediately following my injury and realized there was more to my story than a young girl coping with the effects of paralysis. There was a story about family. There was an example of unconditional love. There was the truth that permanent injury affects more than just the individual who sustains it.

     IMPACT is fiction based on real events that took place when I was still too young to understand how much life can hurt. It is a look into a part of my life that only people who have experienced similar circumstances can understand completely, but I took this opportunity to tell a story instead of reporting the facts. I call my main character Alecia, and through her I hope my readers will understand me and how quickly spinal cord injuries can turn lives upside down.