Last week’s trip to DC was our shortest yet, but we packed quite a bit into those four days in terms of advocacy, growth, and memories made. Being my third year at the ROCH, I wasn’t as awed by the idea that I was about to be rolling through House, Senate, and Capitol buildings. Granted, not…
Spent.
The bottom line of my drive screen says it all. Another day on Capitol Hill with my tribe of squeaky wheels. Too many connections to count and just enough hijinks to keep it weird. It all ended with a three-block push from Mama Dreadlocks & The Mrs. on brand-new batteries that couldn’t make it three…
When in Rome
Maybe it was the lack of chaos that made everything feel so simple or perhaps we’d soaked in just enough of the whole atmosphere over the last couple years by osmosis. Either way it was a little surprising how easily we seemed to slip into advocacy mode today. Much of of the morning and afternoon…
Here We Go Again
It’s interesting, these paths The Universe chooses for you. It was two years ago tonight that my first trip to the East Coast for United Spinal’s Roll on Capitol Hill went from disastrous to borderline absurd. What was supposed to be an epic vacation down the eastern seaboard to see the sights and advocate on…
Another Lap Around the Sun
I have written about it a handful of times, and each time, I’ve found that my relationship with the anniversary of my accident has evolved. The first few years, I didn’t need a reminder because I’d been counting the days, breaths, and heartbeats that I’d survived along the way. At five years, I couldn’t find the words….
I have a secret…
It’s been nearly 3 years since those four words made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “You know…If you weren’t my boss, I’d kind of want to date you.” We’d bonded over long existential talks and reading psychological texts while I was stuck in bed battling a pressure sore for an…
Maintaining Momentum.
Here we are a week into another debacle with a different airline and I am already seeing a familiar pattern from a year ago, which doesn’t feel so good. The initial post of the situation goes viral, people click the share button and express a few lines of outrage which gives the illusion that you…
The Airlines Broke My Legs… Again
Just wanted to thank everyone for the outpouring of support over the last 24 hours. It took about a million zip ties to put my chair into something passable for a seating system to get me home late last night. We were able to piece together the chair United broke last year so that I…
Goodbye to One of The Greatest
There really is no proper way of explaining him. Like any other force of nature, his energy and impact had to be experienced firsthand. My earliest memory of him is that he had a tattoo, definitive proof in a three-year-old mind’s eye that my Grandpa Ed was a pirate. His gravelly voice, perpetually tanned skin…
Full Circle
There is a Kierkegaard quote that says, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” After taking a couple days to decompress from our travels, it’s time to take a look back at the last few days of this trip and see what I can learn. The first and most obvious lesson: What a difference a functioning…
Kenny Salvini 