Patient Number One

I am the second patient in the INVIVO Therapeutics clinical trial. They placed a neruscaffold in my spinal cord. I had a short-lived romance with patient one ( click here for video). Below is the story of why I am thankful he ended the romance.

I will forever be grateful to have had Jordan in my first 6 months of my spinal cord injury. He gave me a lot of tools to gain independence quickly; an act I am beyond thankful for. I will also never be able thank him enough for ending our relationship. Yes, you read that right; I AM THANKFUL HE LEFT ME.

My entire life I have felt that I needed love from other’s to complete my happiness, when in reality I needed love from myself. Self-love is a difficult concept to grasp in a world filled with narcissism, self-pity, and entitlement. I truly didn’t grasp it until about 6 months ago, with a lot left to learn.

In a day where perfection is thrown in your face consistently via the Internet, you create a feedback loop from hell within yourself. It will consist of statements like, “if I had ‘this’,” “if I was more like ‘that’,” I would be…..you know what I’m talking about. We compare ourselves to others based on their appearance and material possessions.

When Jordan ended our relationship we were working on our recovery together. He motivated me, supported me, loved me etc., to an extent, but in reality he was holding me back. We focused on nothing but recovery. His often complaints of financial woes and family drama without action to change them would frustrate me. He once threw my tight family support in my face, but I stayed anyways. Something we all have done once or twice. Some of us stay in shit relationships in fear we will never find anything better. Or we make up excuses for the person. THERE IS NO EXCUSE TO DEVAULE YOU FOR ANOTHER PERSON

With the end of that relationship went my cares about walking again. I decided to start living my life to the fullest. What did I do? Dove head first into every adaptive sport I could try, sharing my adventures via the social media. There was a shift. I started loving my life, then eventually myself. My paralysis was a beautiful journey I would learn to embrace.

But it wasn’t until I let go of all of my cares that my self-love train would steam full-speed ahead. The minute I let go of what others thought of me, a world of opportunity opened to me. I accepted that I wasn’t the prettiest, most athletic, or special in anyway. I’m simply Jesi. I’m unapologetically honest, bossy, and I go for what I want. Not everyone will like me, AND THATS OKAY.