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Most people think a spinal cord injury has one clear story line. Wendy blows that up in the best way. She’s an L1 paraplegic who’s lived with spinal cord injury for 35 years, and she joins us to talk through what “paraplegic” and “quadriplegic” actually mean, how injury level shapes function, and why two people with SCI can look completely different day to day. We also get honest about mental health, because coping after a sudden traumatic injury isn’t a motivational poster, it’s a series of choices you make in rehab and keep making for decades.

We dig into disability rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) from the inside. Wendy shares what it was like being injured right after the ADA became law, fighting to return to work, and eventually going to law school because she needed to understand the system that was failing her. We talk real-world accommodations, the value of remote work long before it was common, and the frustrating truth that many medical providers still don’t understand spinal cord injury care, which forces patients to find specialists and educate everyone else.

Then we get practical and blunt about accessibility. Accessible parking, van ramps, placard abuse, and “waiting” in disabled spots aren’t minor annoyances, they can decide whether you can safely get out of your vehicle or get home at all. Wendy shares a snowstorm parking ticket story that shows how policies collapse when they ignore lived experience. We also touch on inclusive architecture, building codes versus real usability, and why communities work better when disabled people are involved early. If you care about disability advocacy, ADA compliance, accessible travel, or just doing the decent thing in public spaces, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review telling us what accessibility change you want to see next.

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What Counts As Independence After SCI (part 3)