Candi Boyd, Craig’s chaplain of 17 years, tried something new during Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month this year: spending a day in a wheelchair.
The experience, designed to facilitate education and empathy around one of the many, complex aspects of living with a disability, in no way could represent the full experience of living with an SCI but was intended to be a starting point for learning, understanding and conversation. Craig Patient Education Assistant Rachel Wilson, who has used a wheelchair for more than 30 years, accompanied and mentored Candi through the experience, and they both shared what came out of the experience.
“I think it’s important to highlight these things during SCI Awareness Month,” Rachel says. “The only way we’re ever going to see eye to eye with people is to say, ‘tell me about you,’ or ‘let me experience that with you.’”
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Craig Hospital in Denver, Colorado, is a world-renowned rehabilitation hospital that specializes exclusively in the neurorehabilitation and research of patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) and brain injury (BI). Craig is a not-for-profit, free-standing, national center of excellence that has treated more than 34,500 patients with SCI and BI since 1956. https://craighospital.org
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