NOT A PRISONER IN MY WHEELCHAIR
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
JONI EARECKSON TADA: "I'M NOT A PRISONER IN MY WHEELCHAIR - - FAR FROM
IT"
By Daniel J. Vance,
Special to ASSIST News Service
AGOURA, CA (ANS) -- For more than 30
years, quadriplegic and spinal cord injury survivor Joni Eareckson Tada has been
an advocate for persons with disabilities.
Unlike another spinal cord injury survivor, Christopher Reeve, who often pushes
for increased spending on spinal cord injury research to yield a cure, Eareckson
Tada's major thrust has been to improve the present quality of life for all
persons with disabilities.
"Families [affected by disability] are sometimes stuck in the depression I
used to be in," Eareckson Tada told me recently at a Joni and Friends
family retreat in Ohio.
"[That depression] can be like a low-grade fever that never goes
away." But after her faith-based retreats families often go home changed
for better, she claimed, in part because they've met others with similar
backgrounds and drawn encouragement.
Besides her family retreats, she has a daily 5-minute radio show on more than
900 outlets and an affiliated organization Wheels for the World that collects
wheelchairs for distribution to persons in third world countries. Her
autobiography Joni has sold more than two million copies.
In 1967 a healthy, 17-year-old Joni Eareckson dove into the Chesapeake Bay, hit
her head on rock and moments later arose a quadriplegic. It was an unexpected
baptism into disability.
The National Spinal Cord Injury Association (NSCIA) defines spinal cord injury
as "damage to the spinal cord that results in a loss of function such as
mobility or feeling."
Eareckson Tada is one of an estimated 225,000 American survivors, of which 80
percent are men and 55 percent were at the time of their injury between 16 and
30.
Don't say she's wheelchair-bound.
"Those words used to bug me to death," she said. "Because I'm not
bound. I'm not a prisoner. I'm not a helpless victim. However, the older I get,
the more forgiving I've become (of people who say that). If people want to say
I'm wheelchair-bound, they can. But I'm not. They may think it, but I'm far from
it."
She and her husband Ken live in southern California. Now in her early '50s, she
has written more than 30 books, appeared in the full-length feature film Joni,
and is well known internationally for her colorful "mouth art." Her
role as disability advocate led to a presidential appointment and three years of
service on the National Council on Disability.
For more information, see www.spinalcord.org
or www.joniandfriends.org.
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