

Paralysis pain is widespread
When someone sustains a spinal cord injury, it is not just their lives that are dramatically altered in an instant; their family’s lives are changed forever, too.
My father broke his neck in a horse riding accident on May 27, 1995, rendering him a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic, which he remained until his death in October 2004. Through that time, while it was not us in the wheelchair, as a family we lived the injury with him, witnessing firsthand the daily struggle to live as “normal” a life as possible.
Earlier this year the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation released the results of the largest, most comprehensive survey of the U.S. paralyzed community ever conducted, and the data it produced were shocking.
The number of people living with paralysis is far higher than anyone had previously imagined. Just over 5.6 million people in this country live with some form of paralysis, with 1.275 million paralyzed as a result of a spinal cord injury. That’s about 1 in 50 Americans. This means we all know someone — a friend, a brother, a sister, a neighbor, a colleague — living with paralysis.
These aren’t strangers. They are only one degree of separation from all of us.
But their lives are so dramatically different. They live with a condition that affects their family life, their ability to work and their capacity to enjoy even the most routine everyday activities.
Additionally, they bear the brutal financial burden of living with a spinal cord injury, with yearly care costing up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. We were very fortunate in that my father could afford nurses and other medical necessities beyond what his insurance policy covered. But 25 percent of those people living with a spinal cord injury have an annual household income of under $10,000, and simply cannot. Consequently they suffer from inadequate health care, and lack access to rehabilitative exercise equipment, both of which can lead to further deteriorations in their health, and further increases in costs.
The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation wants to change that. We fund the most cutting-edge research to find that cure for spinal cord injury, while simultaneously funding programs around the country that aim to improve the quality of life for those millions living with paralysis.

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