“Believe it or not there have been some individuals who have expressed surprise that I could be happily married to a woman in a wheelchair." Doug Michaels is husband of motivational speaker and former Miss Wheelchair USA Tasha Schuh. “My first…
Kristen and Jeff had planned on going to Hawaii for their 10 year wedding anniversary. “Then everything changed. And our plans were washed away in the ocean with the setting Hawaiian sun,” writes Kristen. Jeff was paralyzed in a beach…
“Relationships are tough enough, and sometimes it’s very hard to be the caregiver and the lover.” https://youtu.be/x64Mu5T36Io “We always think of the significant other to be the caregiver,” says Diane Rowles, a nurse practitioner from the Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation…
“We got some highs and we got some lows and you just try to weather the storm.” https://youtu.be/heZpA5EAiYc Mike, a paraplegic, shares about his relationship with his wife after his spinal cord injury when he was 41 years old. “If…
At the start of his life as a tetraplegic, Aaron faced communication barriers that made things challenging with his new helper. In order to best train his helper, he shared a clear routine to make things simple. https://youtu.be/hiF6gxAdqSg “My mum…
Finding helpers can be tough. “We go through agents for our foreign domestic helpers or just go online…It’s not really tips it’s luck. Finding a good helper requires luck”, says Aaron. https://youtu.be/tPYg294vMv4 Communication plays an important role. The information given…
Cindy fell asleep at the wheel, causing her car to flip. Her family was lucky to be alive and were mostly uninjured except for her daughter, Beth, who broke her neck at C6-7. “The first days in intensive care we had…
Every caregiver has to deal with managing caregiving stress regardless of the disability of the person they are caring for. When a family member has had to assume the role, it changes roles and habits in a family while…
“What’s important is that you have to treat them well. They are human beings after all.” Aaron highlights the importance of having a connection with your caregiver and being on the same page. It’s not necessarily easy to establish a caregiving relationship, but…
Dancing with my daughter on her wedding day. What father hasn’t dreamt about that? I had imagined it in my head hundreds of times since she was a young girl. She’d be beautiful in her flowing white gown, and I…