There was a very moving cover story in the Atlanta Jewish Times last week about an internationally-ranked cyclist named Saul Raisin who suffered a serious brain injury as a result of complications after falling in a race in France this past April. Saul was airlifted to the Shepherd Center, here in Atlanta. The Shepherd Center is a private, not-for-profit hospital devoted to the medical care and rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injury and disease, acquired brain injury, multiple sclerosis and other neuromuscular problems. It has been helping people through some of the most difficult and life-changing experiences they can imagine for more than three decades.
So that was April. If Saul even survived, he was expected to have no movement on his left side. Saul did come out of his coma, and he participated in extensive rehabilitation, including learning how to eat again. On June 30, Saul left Shepherd and went home to the North Georgia mountains, where he will continue treatment. He walks. He swims. He rides a stationary bicycle. What's more, he says he will participate in the Tour de France next year.
On his website, Saul writes that he feels like he has been reborn, that he has been given a second chance at life. "You can overcome obstacles . . . you can achieve anything you set your mind to in life. Life is a beautiful thing." Saul sounds as if he is simply at the bottom of another seemingly insurmountable hill that experience tells him is, indeed, achievable. A stone in the pond, for sure. Good luck, Saul. However the Tour de France of life unfolds for you.
To find out more about Saul Raisin, go to www.saulraisin.com. Also, take a look at what the folks at the Shepherd Center do at www.shepherd.org.
1 comments:
This is such an inspiring and wonderful blog. I love reading these entries. Thanks so much for sharing these incredible people with us.
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