Still Lives: Narratives of Spinal Cord Injury (Bradford Books)

An examination, through personal narratives and reflective commentary, of life without sensation or movement in the body. In writing Still Lives, Jonathan Cole wanted to find out about living in a wheelchair, without having what he calls "the doctor/patient thing" intervene. He has done this by asking people with spinal cord injuries the simple question of what it is like to live without sensation and movement in the body. If the body has absented itself, where does the person reside? He describes his method in the first chapter: "I have gone to people, not with a white coat or a stethoscope ... [but] to listen to their lives as they express them," and it is the candid and powerful narratives of twelve people with spinal cord injuries that form the heart of the book. Asking his simple question, Cole discovers that there is no single or simple answer. The twelve people with tetraplegia (known as quadriplegia in the US) or paraplegia whose stories he tells testify to similar impairments but widely differing experiences. Cole employs their individual responses to shape the book into six main sections: "Enduring," "Exploring," "Experimenting," "Observing," "Empowering," and, finally, "Continuing." Each concludes with a commentary on the broader issues raised. Still Lives moves from a view of impairment as tragedy to reveal the possibilities and richness of experience available to those living with spinal injuries. More universally, it offers new perspectives on our relation to our bodies. In exploring the creative and imaginative adjustments required to construct a "still life," it makes a plea for the able-bodied to adjust their view of this most profound of impairments Acknowledgments......Page 10 I Introduction......Page 14 1 Twenty Years On......Page 16 II Enduring......Page 36 2 We Are All New Boys......Page 38 3 I Do Not Live a Normal Life......Page 52 4 Endurance......Page 66 III Exploring......Page 76 5 Heads Up to the World......Page 78 6 Being Someone Else......Page 94 7 Exploration......Page 110 IV Experimenting......Page 120 8 Because I Can......Page 122 9 Me and It......Page 140 10 Experimentation......Page 156 V Observing......Page 168 11 The Windsurfer......Page 170 12 Both Sides Now......Page 180 VI Empowering......Page 192 13 Disability Matters......Page 194 14 Flyers and Nonflyers......Page 220 15 Empowerment......Page 238 VII Continuing......Page 248 16 For What I Am......Page 250 17 Finding New Things......Page 268 VIII Commentary......Page 282 18 The Dreary Ooze......Page 284 Appendix: Useful Websites......Page 312 Notes......Page 314 References......Page 332 Index......Page 338 Twelve people living with spinal cord injuries and their repercussions are asked what it is like to live without movement or sensation in the body, discovering that the view of the impairment as a tragedy is shifted to the possibilities and richness of experiences available. A little under twenty years ago, I was a research fellow trying to use a neurophysiological technique, spinal cord stimulation, for the relief of chronic pain in those with spinal cord injury.

An examination, through personal narratives and reflective commentary, of life without sensation or movement in the body.