From As Far As I Can See

After receiving my first quasi-negative comment, I would like to take a moment to clear a few things up...

First of all, for those of you who don't know me on a personal basis keeping an online journal like this is going to be hard for me. To know that people are reading the botched up cliches mixed in with some stream of consciousness nonsense is scary enough, not to mention it being compounded with the controversy of the heated issue that I now appear to be the poster child of.

When this all began, I decided after a long two months of debate with myself to go to India to pursue something that has not been dared by many. My decision to go was a struggle simply because I have spent the past eleven years coaching myself into the belief that my life was complete, regardless of my physical stance. My hopes to walk again are small, partially because I don't want to be let down but also because I have grown into the life that I now lead and I am proud of it. The ability to walk does not and will never define me. However, what does plague me is notion that I may not be able to maintain my health and longevity over the remainder of my life. For those of you who don't know, statistically-speaking people with spinal cord injuries typically have shorter life spans than they would have otherwise had being able-bodied. If I could increase my circulation, decrease my wound-healing time, or even regain some core strength that would be far more than I had ever imagined and would help in aspects that you will never be able to understand.

I am worried that there are people who might be disappointed if I don't literally walk away from this, but they might not see all of the small improvements that will increase my livelihood, not to mention all of the emotional growth from the support that I have fallen on in the past few months.

Only recently have I developed an additional purpose to this crusade. In speaking with some students in my classroom one day, I quickly learned that most of them had no idea what stem cells even were, in their most literal, biological sense. This got me thinking and researching right away. More than ever it is important to me to be a part of something that is so ground-breaking and dramatic. I keep telling myself over and over again that all people in history that have been a part of something great and earth-shattering have been infected with the disease of criticism and skepticism. I want to be a part of the story, to spread awareness and education about stem cells to those willing to listen and even those who aren't. I want to help set the stage for people in the future afflicted with diabetes, Parkinson's, cancer, organ failure, and everything else deemed incurable. No matter the personal result of my experience, I hope that it facilitates others' experiences and journeys; to pave a pathway for a new sort of science.

All that I can hope for from this experience is that I learn and grow as a person. I haven't even left for India, nor am I really that close and I have already been witness to so much love and support from as far as I can see. The horizon is never-ending...