Connecting The Resilient - A Spinal Cord Injury Podcast

Julie Sawchuk is a best-selling author, professional speaker and designated Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification (RHFAC) professional. Julie combines her experience of living with a spinal cord injury with her passion for helping people make smart decisions when planning for accessibility.

After completing the construction of her own fully accessible home, Julie wrote Build YOUR Space - How to create an accessible home for you, your family and your future. Julie’s home is the only showcase of Universal Design that demonstrates how accessibility is not just functional, but also beautiful.

Listen in to our conversation as we discuss her book, her experiences, and how accessibility and adaptability is so applicable to everyone suffering from a disability.

I hope you enjoy this episode!

Listen in to my conversation with Andrew Bernstein who was hit by a car while biking home from training. As he explains in the podcast, the spinal cord injury was the least of his concerns as he fought for life in the first couple of months. A year and a half later, Andrew shares how he is walking further, biking again, and attacking his rehab like he attacked his training before he got hurt. In this episode, we also touch on what it means to “recover,” and how it is often more than just physical recoveries, and Andrew offers some wonderful recommendations to patients who have recently been injured. Connect with Andrew on Instagram @bernietweets.

In other news, the four year anniversary of my injury is tomorrow and I will be setting out to set the world record for the 100,000-meter row. I am doing this to raise money for the High Fives Foundation, which is an amazing organization that is helping spinal cord injury athletes achieve their dreams! We have raised an amazing $11,000 so far. Thank you to everyone who has donated! I think we can hit $15,000 with your help! All donations are doubled so go to this link and donate as much or as little as you can!

I wanted to quickly update you on what has been happening over here at CTR and where I have been! We have some really exciting episodes coming in the next couple of months and I am hoping to transform the channel into a bit more of a conversational podcast. I also wanted to share with you a fundraiser I am doing to celebrate my fourth injury anniversary! Between now and December 10th, I am trying to raise $10,000 for High Fives Foundation. High Fives is a fabulous organization that helps injured athletes get back to the sports they love. They are actually helping me fund a kite surfboard and begin kite surfing! That not all! For every $1000 we raise I will be rowing 10,000 meters on December 10th! That will be the longest I have ever rowed, before or after my injury. If you could help support this organization and together we can reach our goal! You can donate here, here, or here! If that doesn’t work go to this link: https://support.highfivesfoundation.org/fundraiser/3055365

Listen in to my conversation with Orion Owens. Orion and I met while we were at Craig and one of our first encounters was while filming with drones. Orion, who has spent much of his life photographing surfing, has continued to explore film and cinematography with drones. He recently published his first book title, “Regeneration.” You can check it out along with his other work at www.orionowens.com.

I apologize for the poor audio quality in this episode. There was a technical difficulty that I didn’t notice until too late.

Listen to my conversation with Derek Herrera who suffered a spinal cord injury in combat in 2012. Since then, Derek has become an expert in spinal cord injury recovery and the technologies aiding that recovery. Derek is the founder of Spinal Singularity, a company aimed at providing solutions to widespread issues faced by the spinal cord injury community. Currently, his company is working on a fully implantable multi-use catheter that has the potential to revolutionize bladder management.

We spoke about how Derek has seen the changes in funding for SCI research, the different technologies he thinks are most promising going forward, as well as his advice for newly injured people.

Listen in to my conversation with Nick Fairall, former Olympian and current paralympian, as we discuss how he rebounded from his injury during a ski-jumping competition into another sport he loved: water skiing. Beyond these incredible feats, however, Nick’s true prowess is in his attitude towards life and recovering from a spinal cord injury. I left my conversation with Nick much happier and I hope you do as well! Feel free to connect with Nick on facebook and twitter:

Facebook.com/fairallniInstagram: nick_fairall

Be sure to check out our new Peer2Peer program here.

Listen in to my conversation with Mike Shaw and Jim Mullan as we discuss this year’s Wings for Life World Run. The Wings for Life World Run is an annual running race taken part all around the world that raises money for spinal cord injury research. The race will take place on Sunday, May 5th at 7 a.m EST. You can join in with Mike, Jim and I as we try to run a collective 5500 km! Download the app here and make sure you join team #Coast2Coast! Let’s join together and run for those who can’t.

I met Rob a little over a year ago at a spinal cord injury conference in Canada. Rob told me then about the research he was doing and I was fascinated by it. I knew I had to get him on the podcast and although it took over a year I finally delivered! Rob is a super fascinating guy researching some really interesting things from spinal cord injury patients optimal exercise time to the best way to match a mentor with a mentee. I really hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I did! Stay tuned for a special episode next month!

I am really excited to share with you my most recent podcast episode with Jim Harris! Jim was injured a little over four years ago while hiking in Chile but has made a remarkable recovery. The best part of Jim, however, is his great outlook toward life, his injury, and his recovery. We talked about how he has achieved this outlook as well as some milestones he has reached along the way. We also discussed the benefits and drawbacks of goal setting. I really enjoyed my conversation with Jim and hope you enjoy it as well! Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes if you enjoy it!

I am really excited to share my conversation with John Maclean with you. John was injured in 1988 and since then has battled back through his paralysis to accomplish herculean deeds. John first completed a triathlon post-injury in 1994 as a wheelchair athlete. 20 years later he completed the same triathlon as an able-bodied competitor.

In those 20 years, he also raced in a number of IronMans, swam the English channel, went to and medaled in a number of Olympic games, started a foundation, and learned to walk. On top of that, he has written three books about his experiences.

At the heart of it all, though, John is a determined positive goal driven individual who set his mind to many tasks and achieved them. I really hope you enjoy this episode.