A life in motion, stopped cold
June 17, 2015 4:03 AM Subscribe
After an attempt to return to Olympic glory ended in paralysis, Laís Souza rebuilds her life one movement at a time. [SLNYT]
The insane part of this is that it seems like many Olympic skiers don't actually know how to ski "normally".
posted by schmod at 10:01 AM on June 17, 2015
posted by schmod at 10:01 AM on June 17, 2015
I've been thinking about this all day, wanting to comment, not knowing what to say. I still don't, but I wanted to thank you for posting this.
Every day I walk past the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, past many patients -- too many -- who are working to overcome injuries like Souza's. Every day I think: the human body has such remarkable resilience, such remarkable capacity to heal... and yet in one terrible instant, how much can change!
We are all so dreadfully fragile.
posted by Westringia F. at 6:36 PM on June 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
Every day I walk past the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, past many patients -- too many -- who are working to overcome injuries like Souza's. Every day I think: the human body has such remarkable resilience, such remarkable capacity to heal... and yet in one terrible instant, how much can change!
We are all so dreadfully fragile.
posted by Westringia F. at 6:36 PM on June 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
« Older Completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand | the rejected Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
“She never once blinked an eye and said, ‘Why me?’ or ‘I’m depressed’ or ‘I feel sorry for myself’ or ‘I want to kill myself,’” Green said. “It’s not uncommon to get those responses after such a catastrophic injury.”
Souza's own words and the words of a close caretaker and family member-
“Sometimes I stop and ask myself why, why me?” she said at one point. Once, as she spoke, Souza became preoccupied by a stray piece of hair wisping across her forehead. She could not brush it away by herself. Such a simple thing. “The hardest part is that I’m always asking for a favor,” she said.
“She gets sad,” said Odete, who quit her job at the shoe factory last fall to care for her daughter. It is especially hard to see such an independent person forced into such dependence, always surrounded by caregivers. “She asks to be left alone sometimes,” Odete said.
“I want to pass my hand through my hair, to feel my hand on my face, to take a shower,” she said. She recently got a tattoo on her arm: a person in a wheelchair standing up and gradually walking away.
When she dreams at night, she said, she never dreams of skiing. She dreams of gymnastics.
posted by congen at 9:04 AM on June 17, 2015 [1 favorite]