-
SCI Superstar: Tim Strachan
“Go Stags!” is a chant Tim Strachan, 34, heard all the time as the starting quarterback for DeMatha Catholic High School (a premier boys high school in Maryland). And no wonder, at 6’3, 215 lbs, with a “spectacular arm,” Tim was a beast (and the ’beast’ Joe Paterno wanted as Penn State’s next quarterback). Then everything changed right before his senior year. A day at Bethany Beach landed Tim with a broken C5 vertebrae. He underwent a massive 19 hour neck surgery and had to spend the next several months in rehab. That was over 18 years, and a lifetime ago. Broken neck? Don’t take Tim down for the count.…
-
Push Girls Episode 4 review: Hope Its Not Too Late
In this episode, Angela tries to teach herself to pain again and dols out some killer advice to the ladies. Meanwhile, Auti is stressing out about not being able to *stay* pregnant and visit’s a fertility doctor and Tiphany and her girlfriend Miyoko see some rough seas. SPOILERS AHEAD **** This episode had A LOT going on. Let’s start out with Angela, the quad of the group. She decides after 10 years to try to paint again. Watching her struggle holding a brush with quad hands was fascinating. It is not easy learning how to still use paralyzed fingers. Been there. But why did she wait 10 years? Auti, the…
-
Push Girls Episode 3 review: You Don’t Get It
In the third episode of Push Girls, Mia’s backstory with her mother is highlighted, and Angela throws an epic 10 year anniversary party celebrating her “new life.” SPOILERS AHEAD **** As this episode begins, Mia shows what may be possibly the most dangerous type of wheelchair-to-car transfer ever, and that is a busy LA Street. I don’t know how Mia, or any other bad ass paraplegics in any busy city do this type of transfer. I love that the show is showing the extra dangers people in wheelchairs face in their everyday lives (and how even more important, people need to pay more attention to the road and look out for…
-
SCI Superstar: Teal Sherer
Teal Sherer (yup like the color), whose an actress and paraplegic, has come a long way from the log house she grew up in in rural Tennessee. After breaking her back while riding in a car to Labor Day fireworks show when she was just 14, she found a new passion post-injury – acting – hasn’t looked back since. After college, Teal decided to make the big move out to LA to pursue her dreams of acting. Her first break came in 2004, when she was cast in HBO’s Warm Springs (a film about the life of FDR starring Kenneth Branagh. She played a young woman with Polio. Loved this…
-
Push Girls Episode 2 review: Watch Me
After a great intro on the four girls in Episode 1, the show gets deep and dirty. SPOILERS AHEAD **** “Once a dancer, always a dancer,” Auti says in the second episode of the series, after revealing her tragic injury story (on the night of her injury, she sold herself for $500 to a male friend to pay rent). And Mia shares she might be too strong. “Sometimes I don’t think I have any tears left to cry.” Gotta love Angela’s meditation sounds. Maybe it helps her deal with her paralysis? And in a scene at Tiphany and Angela’s house (they’re roommates), Tiphany transfers out of her chair onto a…
-
Push Girls: Reality TV Finally Finds Us
I wrote more about what “Push Girls” means to me for Easystand. Check it out: Push Girls premiered last Monday, the new reality show on the Sundance channel profiling four “hot babes” in wheelchairs. As a babe in a wheelchair myself (hey I’ve been called that), this show is the televised messiah I’ve been waiting for. The show’s premise – showing the world that you can still be beautiful, have a full life, a great job, have men that want you, and still drive a fabulous car (has been my personal goal since my injury). You have no idea how frustrating it is for people to be shocked when you can achieve any of…
-
SCI Superstar: Jesse Billauer
The ocean can be a dangerous place. Sharks, big waves with multiple personalities, fugly Man o’ Wars, but you don’t have to tell Jesse Billauer this. He’s a born and bred Cali boy who came out of the womb with a surfboard attached to the hip. Jesse, at 17, was living the semi-charmed life of a California teenager – young, athletic, gorgeous (still is) and staged to be one of the next big surfers; it was an idyllic life. But his world turned upside down in 1996 when the crest of a wave threw him off his surfboard. Jesse hit his head on a sandbar and became a C5-6 quadriplegic…
-
SCI Superstar of the Week: Auti Angel
The world’s first hip-hop dancer, Auti Angel is the feisty member of the new show Push Girls and is also in the film Musical Chairs, that delves into the world of wheelchair ballroom dancing. Don’t mess with this Torrance, Cali native. Read this entry
-
Push Girls Episode 1 Review: Everyone Stares
Oooh baby. I woke up this morning thinking I had nothing to look forward to except an ultrasound and a day of writing ahead of me, but then I saw the first episode of Push Girls dropped a week early. Post-Memorial Day weekend blues cured. SPOILERS AHEAD *** The first episode is titled “Everyone Stares,” which couldn’t be a better name for the first episode (that’s one of the first things you’ll notice when you use a wheelchair – everybody stares). And as the 12 minute preview (released last month) of the series gave me hope for, the first episode hit every note – the reality of dating in a wheelchair, health…
-
Quadriplegic moves robotic arm via thought, touches girlfriend’s hand
This has got me so excited I don’t know where to even begin. Researchers have finally figured out how to hook up our minds to robotics after successfully implanting electrodes into the sexy red-headed brain of Tim Hemmes (a C2 quadriplegic injured in a motorcycle wreck 7 years ago). Will this be the eventual spinal cord injury cure? Read this entry
