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Going to work, getting an education, visiting friends and relatives and other activities could be severely cut for disabled valley residents when July transit services reductions go into effect.

Sally Temple is scientific director at the stem cell institute, housed in the Cancer Research Center at the University at Albany's East Campus. Grants from the trust fund cover about 20 to 30 percent of the institute's activities.

"In 1998, with the help of friends and influential people like Christopher Reeve, Richter got the state to create the Spinal Cord Injury Research Board, which distributes research grants to facilities all across the state. To fund it, the state placed a surcharge on fines for moving traffic violation.

"It’s a self-sustaining program,” Richter explained. “It was an idea I had to try to raise money, and most spinal cord injuries result from automobile and motorcycle accidents."

Being a huge hoops fan, I was quite disturbed when I learned of Rodney Rodger's spinal cord injury back (http://www.scisucks.org/content/rodney-rodgers-paralyzed) in December. Chris Webber (Rodney's friend and former teammate) interviewed him and this was displayed at halftime of Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals over the weekend. This was Rodney's first public appearance since his injury. I can't describe how upsetting the details of Rodney's injury are to me... C3/C4. From everyone around him, it sounds like he was a tremendous person who was active in his community. It simply isn't fair. We know that, but what can we do about it? My thoughts are the same on Rodney's SCI as on any other--don't pray, rationalize or lament the tragedy.

A lot of people find this site via Google when they are searching for answers when spinal cord injury makes an unwelcome appearance in their lives.  I get emails from people that sometimes touch me deeply.  I thought this one was particularly powerful  and am sharing it with the permission of the wonderful woman who wrote it:

Hello,

First of all, I want to tell you how much I love this site. I agree, Spinal Cord Injuries Suck and most people have no clue. I have read most of your posts and have passed on some of the information to my daughter, who is a recent C5 Incomplete Quad.(Just typing that out makes me cry) Feels the same way you do about the bowel and bladder program. Recently, told her boyfriend, who started showing-up less and less, to move on. Didn't want someone around, who felt "obligated" to hang with her. Wanted to focus on her recovery and didn't feel like she could be a very good girlfriend to him right now.