July 24, 2024
The Happenings
Quinn Brett
HAPPY SUMMER! And thank you to the five new monthly donors that joined us last month!!
My last note, Spinal Cord Injury is So Hot Right Now, mentioned a few things U2FP has accomplished. Over the coming months, I want to share about our growing education and advocacy programs, which fuel our mission of accelerating functional recovery research.
In my early hospital days, and even during those inpatient and outpatient stays at a model system, I felt something was still missing. So did Jason Stoffer, our Curecast Podcast host and Cure Advocacy Network Manager. We first met at our in-patient stay back in November of 2017.
Since both of us had backgrounds in emergency medicine and were athletes, the physiology of what was happening in our central nervous system was a strong point of curiosity. We bonded over that desire to learn more, sharing resources and thoughts on how we could best dive into this education and advocacy “thing.” We had each other, but felt alone in the big picture.
Quinn Brett (left) and Jason Stoffer (right) during the early days of their injury at Craig Hospital.
In our extensive online searches for educational resources on SCI, I found a book called Don’t Call it a Miracle, available for free on Amazon. Jason and I realized that we were not the only two with this desire to learn more, to use that knowledge and push the envelope with questions and action within the SCI community. But, like us, so many injured people did not know where to start.
This is why when I started with U2FP late last year, we hatched a plan to begin traveling to SCI Rehabilitation Hospitals and disseminating U2FP’s educational materials to newly injured patients. Our aim is to make educational resources more readily accessible — our community needs to know the objective information about the injury, the science behind it and the current state of SCI research.
Bringing this information face-to-face to newly injured folks, from two injured individuals, makes all the difference. We can commiserate about this injury, while delivering reliable, up to date info on SCI and U2FP’s advocacy opportunities.
Mary McMenamy (left) and Jake Beckstrom (right) share a laugh during a back-yard get together.
Your monthly donations go directly towards educating our SCI community and developing new advocates to participate in accelerating the functional recovery that would improve their quality of life.
There are over 300,000 of us living with SCI in the United States, with an estimated 18,000 new cases a year. Imagine how much more quickly we would be moving the needle, if we could engage the newly injured into this advocacy work — it increases pressure on the whole system to move more efficiently, with those living with the injury at the center of the conversation. You see more of us, you hear more of us, you realize the need, and work smarter to meet those demands!
Thank you for your support!
