Candice Chaney
Candice's English Channel Relay Swim
Fundraising for Aspire
Story
Historically, the majority of spinal cord injuries have been sustained by those aged 15 to 40, with men outnumbering women, although increasingly it is affecting older people too.
Through its projects and programmes, Aspire offers practical support to the 40,000 people living with a spinal cord injury in the UK so that they can lead fulfilled and independent lives in their homes, with their families, in work places and in leisure time.
The services offered are available to new patients in the NHS Spinal Cord Injury Centres, to those who have just been discharged from hospital and to people who have been living with their injury for years. But whilst they are different in what they do, they all have the same goal – to help take someone from injury to independence.
£25 will pay for a visit with an Independant Living Advisor, which is a person with a sustained spinal cord injury, who offers advice to a person with newly acquired spinal cord injury.
£4,000 will buy a wheelchair that's is lightweight, and something that a person with a spinal cord injury can lift and put in their car, by themselves.
£25,000 helps to adapt a house, so that someone with a spinal cord injury can live with their family.
When I came over to England, swimming the Channel was not on my list of swims. However, when I was asked to join a relay team to swim the channel, and the fundraising's for spinal cord injuries, I couldn't pass up the once in a lifetime chance.
Having grown up in a community that has a very active disabled population, and having worked in the hospital with spinal cord injuries, and helping them rehabilitate before being discharged to home, I was shocked to hear what a person with spinal cord injuries has to go thru to gain independence.
Hopefully thru my efforts, with the help of others, I can help at least one person, if not more, gain independence and reclaim part of their previous life back, after such a devastating injury.