By Cheryl Stowe
Erick Rehkopf, the man who crashed his car, drunk, and caused my injury, pled guilty to aggravated vehicular assault, a Class D Felony, in October 2006. The offense carried a three-year sentence which, at the Judge’s discretion, could be served through a variety of methods, from simple probation to a full term of jail time. […]
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At Erick Rehkopf’s sentencing hearing, I read the following statement: Your honor, when the defendant chose to drive his car with three passengers while intoxicated and crashed it into the back of a turning tractor trailer, I sustained serious, life-threatening injuries. Two of my ribs were broken, my scalp was peeled back from the top […]
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Spinal cord injury support group meetings are unbearable. They are typically one hour, once a month, held at a hospital, and run and organized by staff who have never had a disability. The format is not honest discussion among those with injuries (as implied by the words SCI, support, and group), but rather a presentation […]
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I urinated all over myself in front of four mothers and their small children, whom they clutched to themselves in horror, in a Pilot Travel Center gas station restroom just over the Kentucky State line in 2005. Ana looked on in stunned disbelief as the dark spot spread down my jeans. The warm liquid traveled […]
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Mondays are rounds at Shepherd. My attending neurosurgeon, Dr. Murray, comes into each room on the SCI floor at 8am to review progress, ask questions, answer questions, and tailor our medical care for the upcoming week. He is accompanied by whichever resident happens to be doing his neuro rotation with us at the time. My […]
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One week after my injury, I was flown by a fixed-wing medical jet to a specialty critical care hospital for spinal cord injury in Atlanta – Shepherd Center. I spent 9 long and amazing weeks there, of working my ass off, physically and mentally, all day, from 6am-6pm, 6 days a week, to learn a […]
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When I first came to a full understanding of the severity of my injuries in the intensive care unit, everything was still burry. My vision was of colors, light, and movement alone, like an impressionist painting. Words made sense, but only at a strange instinctual level whose sole purpose was to differentiate small talk from […]
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“Cheryl, stop chewing on your tubes.” A disembodied male voice speaks to me out of the darkness somewhere near my feet. I realize I am chewing on something soft and pliable in my mouth. It sticks together when I bite down in a not unpleasant way. It is difficult to breathe. “Cheryl, you’re in the […]
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(From TEDx Furman University, “Shatter” – March 21, 2015) On March 29, 2005, I survived a serious car accident. After a long night of dedicated alcoholic consumption, I trusted someone who said he was “totally cool to drive”. He wasn’t. And less than 48 hours later, I woke up in an intensive care unit. I […]
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