Blog > Thoughts > Sean's Thoughts > Against All Odds
Against All Odds
Written by Sean on Friday, May 15, 2009
You have to admire the tenacity of some people. You have to admire the level of denial of these people too. A British soldier with a spinal cord injury recently completed the London Marathon. 13 days after everyone else… He had something to prove. He is raising money for charity, yeah, but he had something to prove.
So, here’s this guy who "was left with no feeling or motor control in his legs, and no bladder or bowel control". Yep, he was paralysed. But they are careful not to say that in the article, aren’t they?
It amuses me on some level that the people who are so gung-ho about finding a cure, those who are fighting adversity, are presented in the news as heroes. They forget all the other people who have spinal cord injuries who don’t have the benefit of such exposure. People who go carry on with their lives. People who keep their families together, get back to their jobs, go back to their *ordinary* lives. Those to me are heroes. In a book I read a while back a woman who’d had polio as a child was asked what was heroism, and she said something like "for a paralysed woman to put on pantyhoses every morning before going to work".
Some people might disregard my attitude towards people searching for a cure for SCIs because I need to have one. But this post isn’t about a "cure". It’s about attitudes.
I don’t know, it seems… Odd, I guess.
But good on him for going back to active duty and completing his 20 years before retirement. Good on him for finishing the marathon, good on him for aiming to climb El Capitan next. It’s good to be able to do extraordinary things in your life. As I said in another post, I’d like to do some extraordinary things myself. My reaction to this guy though, it’s not envy. I actually am not finding the words to describe what it is. Perhaps I’m just tired of the cult of the hero?
What do YOU think of that news story?
Tags: Cure, Paralysis, Spinal Cord Injury
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7 Comments
Do a search on his name and you’ll come up with a sickly article from the BBC detailing how a horrifically injured serviceman beat all the odds to row accross the channel. It’s full of how brave he is etc and it made me ask why they don’t report every person who sustains a spinal injury and manages to move on with life.
I guess it’s odd for me because it seems this serviceman is doing everything he can to deny that he has SCI when I really want one, and for my friends and family to accept that’s who I am and just get on with it.
I always find myself disgusted by the media circus. Had this soldier been denied entry to the marathon the headlines would scream every type of “ism” known and invented a few more. I am surprised they did not advocate some sort of “level’ playing field to ensure a top ten finish for this guy.
Yet the media unashamedly covers these human interest stories and treats the disabled more or less as trained seals, in this case, a heroic trained seal. Sean is absolutely right, you very seldom see a ‘regular’ disabled person put on any sort of pedestal or even recognized unless they are performing some sort of approved trick for the media. Same as how the Oprah’s of the world will embrace some “rehabilitated” criminal as some sort of inspiration.
4 On 15 May, 2009, Phil said:
What do I think?
I think that we don’t need heroes. We need humans, humane humans.
And I don’t feel the need to prove anything or to achieve something extraordinary. As Woody Allen once put it: “I don’t want to live on in the hearts of the people. I want to live on in my apartment.”
But hey, everybody is different. We have the desire to become legless, paralysed or something like that. Others have the desire to climb a mountain, row the channel, invent a new gadget or whatever.
A sidemark: When a soldier is wounded and gets an impairment I constantly have to think about the people he has shot, injured, killed. (Of course, quite a few soldiers have saved lots of lives.)
Everybody is a hero, and nobody is a hero.
If it wasn’t this guy the media would be focusing on someone else.
But i do say good on him for finishing the race and not letting anything hold him back.
I have to disagree with your post to some regards. I believe the report is good and I think we could use more stories like this one and here is why. I think of a teenager or a young adult who was recently the victim of a spinal cord injury, I think of someone struggling with physiotherapy or rehabilitation and I think a story like that can really motivate them and give them hope, give them the courage to do all the daily things that so often go unrewarded. Our news cycles are crowded with stories of murder, betrayal, scandals, abuse, financial schemes and violence, I think everyone could use a little bit of inspiration these days and I think this provides it . . . Just a thought.
I have to agree with matt on this one too. Think about it… We *need* a disabity to feel complete. Others who are thrown to the disabilty wolves most likely are terrified of it and it’s great to see that they have inspirational stories to help them along. Now if we could just find a doctor that could *cure* all of us….
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1 On 15 May, 2009, Becs said:
Ya gotta do what ya gotta do to get out of bed every morning. I didn’t even read the article because I was afraid of the “oh, what a hero” stuff that makes me fwow up.