Hello

Adapting yourself to a disability.

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As you might know, Physical impairment might be related to genetic conditions, diseases or accidents. Consequence in all of them is that life is lived in a different way and as Darwin said, the strongest is the one that adapts the most, and faster!

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Now, how is it living with a disability? Mine came late in life, 6 years ago over a rugby injury that after surgeries ended up leaving my left leg completely unfunctional. As the key reason for it was nerve damage (and nerves can’t be replaced nor recovered) I’ve lived this past 6 years with pain 24/7 and degrading my mobility without assistance.

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At the beginning was on a wheelchair and mentally couldn’t cope with it, so started trying to do things with crutched or canes, but then ended up with my hips and other leg in severe disfunction as well as for additional pain…….. but who could blame that I was trying to feel “normal” and pushing the limits?

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One of the most difficult parts is assuming that change on yourself, and back to Mr Darwin, adapt! Why is so difficult? When you are in a wheelchair, people treat you differently, they mean good, but in your mind you feel as if they see you as not capable of doing the simplest things (of course everything depends on the level of disability) and that hits you hard inside as it’s a confirmation of what you feel and that you need to overcome.

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It also comes with a lot of fear, will I be a burden for my family? Imagine that in few years I might not be able to move alone, have a shower, wonder around a new city, go visit my kids and their families, would they need to adapt their living space for me to be able to visit my grandkids??? I can’t even walk my dog………….

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On the professional side, will this condition my career? If there’s a need for me to be in the field, traveling, attending meetings outside of the offices, will I be able? How this could be seen by organizations?

Fair statement? not easy at all and a lot of demons to defeat, but life is a chain of events and often times we have little to non influence, again Mr Darwin, thanks!! We need to adapt……

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What did I do? Somethings, maybe few, maybe a lot….. Couple of years ago started playing tennis in a wheelchair, last year played a tournament in Switzerland I didn’t go far on it, but believe me, winning my first match was like feeling reborn. As I had always a strong passion and dedication to sports (my land wire), also started playing badminton and later squash.

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Through squash I found a lot of opportunities, I’m currently paving the road for it to be recognized as a sport and included in the paralympics, aiming to play in Brisbane 2032 (unfortunately LA 2028 will not be possible to have the discipline as part of the games) so might be able to breaking two records, being on the first group of Para Squash medalists, and being above athlete’s average age (way above!!!).

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I also lead several initiatives to include and promote squash and managed to do an exhibition in one of its most important venues last year in Paris and earlier this year in Zürich, playing with able body athletes, actually professional players to show that is possible and also offering globally support to go and do workshops or training camps to introduce and attract more people to wheelchair adapted racket sports, it’s my limited and humble way to prevent others to suffer what I did and show them that everything is possible.

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Long story short, the first that has to accept disabilities is no one else than yourself, people wanting to help you is out of empathy (thanks to all those kind souls) and not because they see you less than them, tell your story without any embarrassment and self pity, it is what it is and you have to move on one step (or roll) at a time  and adapt!

Just to finish, there’s always a million reasons for not doing something, you only need that one single reason to do it. Focus and commit on it, then you will succeed.