Hello, my name is Cody. I am a 34 year old quadriplegic and full-time father of two amazing kids. As you will learn we have one incredible story. We have overcome a lot and we keep on going.
We are about to get into our story but first here’s a little bit about myself to help you understand the type of person I am.
YES! I am a quadriplegic, but, first, and before anything else… I am the full time father of 2 really great kids… My daughter is 14 and my son just turned 13. They are such great kids! Some might say I am a single father, however they do go to Mom’s two weekends a month, or every other weekend(Friday-Sunday night) and an occasional day or two here and there… Otherwise for the most part they are here with me the majority of the time. No, I’m not complaining or, trying to brag, or make myself seem significant… Just trying to get you to the point where you can understand what type of person I am and show that even as a quadriplegic, you can still be in control of your daily life and responsibilities. I also have a stepson however he lives with his mother and I only see him once in awhile these days. He just turned 18 and I took him to get his state ID and then gave him some money to buy lottery tickets. When my ex-wife and I first got together he was almost 2 years old and his real dad was nowhere in the picture. From that day forward I raised him like he was my own child. We were together for 11 years. I’ve always been the type of guy to give the shirt off my back or the last dollar in my pocket to somebody else in need. I am the kind of guy that would help a little old lady out to her car without hesitation, the kind of guy that just worked a 16-hour shift then gets off and helps the neighbor without even thinking about it. I was, heck, I still am, the type to stay positive and spread positivity. I am almost always very generous, if I can help I will. I Always think before I act and I’m respectful and polite. I am a Never be selfish always be thoughtful type of guy. If you were able to ask anyone in my life… They would all tell you, I’m a stand-up, trustable, One of a Kind, genuine soul that’s always there when you need him and doesn’t give you his word unless he can stand by it. I put my family first and my priorities second. Always ready and willing to lend a helping hand. I won’t lie to you at all, Since the accident took place almost 11 years ago, it has been a struggle and fight to maintain and keep moving forward. What seems like constant stress and struggle between health, finances, and learning how to do this all on my own while raising children. As soon as something good happens it seems like something negative happens shortly after. I’ve almost died four or five different times just since the accident. I rarely ask for help but I help all I can. I am currently in a bit of a situation but I am confident things will work themselves out as long as I take charge and don’t sit around. I am finally asking for help though. No, I don’t just want a hand out. I am more than willing to work for what I need an earn the money on my own. I just sort of need to be shown what I need to do, and then grow from there, if that makes sense. The kids and I have really been put through enough and need a break.
If I am unable to figure out what to do now, I will have no choice but to sell the home we are currently living in to pay for the cost of my care. I am pretty sure I have a legit business opportunity but, I need to come up with the finances for the mentorship and software needed. This business opportunity I have will give us A chance to take a deep breath and think about all the life experiences, both good and bad. A good hoorah a pat on the back. Just the chance to not be constantly worried about something or in the hospital or wondering who my next caregiver is going to be and if we can even find somebody. A chance for muscles to loosen up and the air to seem lighter. A chance for the kids and I to bring each other close and make some good solid memories with nothing negative in between. Four more years and my daughter is 18. We don’t get these opportunities after that. I mean we do but they’re not the same. If you would like to help out… I have a GoFundMe https://gofund.me/a13ceee4 even if I could get the financial assistance in the form of a loan. I am willing to go straight to work paying for it.
Thank you for sticking around! Everything you have read up to this point and everything you are about to read is 100% truthful. We’ve lived it, done it, and experienced it.
Our Story
June 28th 2013 was a hot, dry, 108° summer day. I woke up , mowed the lawn, and then packed everything for our camping trip/family reunion. Once I was done, two of my brothers and my sister-in-law met us at my house anticipating a fun weekend along the Snake River. Finally, everything’s packed, our vehicles are looked over, and all seems well… My ex wife, our three little ones, and I all loaded up and got on the road with my brothers and sister-in-law following close behind… It wasn’t supposed to be a long drive, a little over an hour in total. Little did we know the nightmare about to unfold. We were about 45 minutes into our hour long drive. Cruise control set, my ex with her feet on the dash and her seat tilted back, all three kids sound asleep in their car seats, windows down, just cruisin. Everything seemed in order when I went to pass a slow moving semi truck pulling a trailer uphill however, just as I got past the front of the truck, all hell broke loose!
Boom, all of a sudden the vehicle jerks violently and the sound of a horrible noise. My driver side rear tire blew out. Suddenly It’s all I can do to control the vehicle and the next thing I know, I can’t. Now we are facing the semi I just passed. We are practically going backwards down the freeway at 75 miles an hour. We hit the dirt shoulder and the vehicle violently started rolling before finally coming to rest on its wheels. My brothers and sister-in-law watching everything happen… Wishing, wanting, and praying it was not true. After the dust settles they all start to panic and run up to us. I remember my brother saying Cody Cody are you okay? I had broken my neck. I remember telling him I can’t move my arms or legs I need you to get me out of here it’s going to catch fire. I was in fear that my hot exhaust pipe would set the dry desert vegetation on fire and we would burn as I knew we came to rest back on the tires.
I don’t remember much as I was coming in and out of Consciousness. We were only 3 miles away from the exit we needed to take and less than 15 minutes from the family reunion. My father came to the scene. I remember… He asked me how I was doing and I smartly replied… How does it look like I’m doing and gave a little grin. The next thing I remember is the sound of crunching metal as they used the jaws of life to cut apart the car in order to get me out. Next I remember suddenly being in a helicopter as they were air lifting me to the hospital. My ex and the kids were taken to One hospital and I was taken to a completely different one. When I got to the hospital I was able to speak with my mother right before surgery. All I kept asking was how is my ex and the kids? How is she and the kids? She assured me that she had been in contact with my ex and they were all okay. It was estimated that we rolled between five and eight times and somehow they were all okay. No broken bones or anything, just a couple scrapes and bruises. I told my mom… I said Mom I was doing everything right, we had our seat belts on, I was doing the speed limit, I wasn’t looking down I was doing everything right I promise. She tried her best to let me know she believed and trusted me before I was rushed off to surgery.
I remember waking up… My ex was there and some other family I don’t remember exactly who. All I wanted to do was ask how the kids were doing. I couldn’t talk though. There were tubes in my mouth and they had done a tracheotomy so I could breathe through all the swelling. I almost couldn’t communicate at all until they finally brought in a computer that was able to sense where my eyes were looking and I could look at letters on a screen and type words. It took forever to spell out words and sentences but it worked, at least that was able to communicate. I learned that the kids were doing perfectly fine, thank God. I remember I didn’t want them to come and see me because I didn’t want them to be afraid of what I looked like with all the tube’s attached to me and my eyeball practically sticking out of my skull. I had gotten a really nasty black eye.
Following the surgery, the doctor told everyone I would never move anything from the neck down. He told my ex she should put me in a nursing home and move on with her life. About a week and a half two weeks later, I could just barely move my arms. Just a couple inches below the elbow. My doctor kept telling everyone he’s not doing that it’s just nerves it’s just nerves. As time went on I started being able to move them a little bit more and a little bit more. I remember, they would fall off the arms of the wheelchair and rub on the tires and I didn’t even know it. Even if I did I wasn’t strong enough to pick them back up and I couldn’t talk to ask for help. I would have to undergo extensive physical therapy to get some of the control of my arms back and be able to feel and lift them on my own. I would remain in the hospital for 4 long months. Learning how to breathe all over again, eat all over again, and talk all over again. We hoped that through all the physical therapy I would actually be able to walk again. By the time I got discharged I could just barely raise my hands above my head. Just enough to operate a power wheelchair. Today, I can almost raise my arms all the way up however I have no ability to move my wrists or fingers and I have no feeling below my nipples. I am what is considered an incomplete quadriplegic. I broke C3 4 and 5 vertebrae and they fused C2 through C6.
I ended up having to stay like a week after my discharge date because my ex had to find a new house for us to live in before I could go home and she just wasn’t having any luck. Before the accident we were living in a single wide mobile home and it wasn’t going to work for me now being confined to a wheelchair. Finally though, I believe it was the 13th or 14th of October I was able to go home. I remember being so excited to go be with my kids and wife. I was so happy and excited to finally be back at home.
For the longest time we didn’t have a vehicle to transport me in. When we would go places, my ex would ride a bike, one kid would sit on my lap, one kid would sit on my feet, and our oldest would stand on the back and hang on to my power wheelchair. We went everywhere like that. The kids loved doing it and we loved to be gone from the house enjoying the outdoors.
In the next few years we set up the trust, made sure to start college funds for all three of the kids, got a handicap accessible van, And through the trust purchased the home we live in now. Things seemed to be going all right.
About a year or so after we purchased the home I became very sick and no idea why. I would spend days in bed and missed Christmas with my kids and I also missed New Year’s. I didn’t know at the time but my blood sugars were dangerously High. I ended up going into diabetic ketoacidosis and I almost died. I spent a couple weeks in the hospital learning that I was Now a type one diabetic with a long road ahead of himself. So Not only was I a quadriplegic but now I was a type 1 diabetic quadriplegic. It was a lot to learn let me tell you. Diabetes is not easy especially for a quadriplegic. It seems like ever since then it has pretty much been non-stop issues. Things would be going great for a couple weeks or a month and then boom something happens, for example.. . I end up in the hospital with a pressure ulcer but the second I heal up and get out of the Hospital I come down with a bladder infection, my wheelchair would break, or my handicap accessible vehicle would break down just to name a few. It seems like absolutely every time something good happens it’s soon followed by something negative. It seems like I barely get time to breathe before something comes up. I just try to stay positive and push forward the best I can and set an example for my children.
Four years after the accident, came the divorce… We’re not going to dive into that though. I am not here to make anybody look bad and her and I are getting along pretty good these days and that’s great for the kids. However between that and the fact that I discovered she was having an affair, it just made everything worse. She went and filed for a divorce and I gladly signed the papers. I was super scared though… I didn’t know what I was going to do or if I could even do it on my own and I thought I was going to end up in some kind of a nursing home or something. After we were legally divorced she did not move out right away and her and her partner we’re staying in my home against my will. I almost had to legally evict them. I borrowed $1,000 and give it to my ex just so she had enough to get into a place so her and the kids were stable.
What follows is the worst time of my life by far…
My ex was dealing with some things and she knew she could not reliably or responsibly care for the kids at the time. I have since learned that it was absolutely illegal, I could have sued them, and they should not have done it but, Health and Welfare got involved and because I was in a wheelchair they took custody away from me. At the same time I came down with three pressure ulcers. I was very malnourished and wasn’t getting proper nutrients to help prevent them. I ended up being hospitalized with a very serious bone infection. Thankfully my kiddos were able to be placed with my mother and little sister.
For the next 7 months, I would bounce from hospital to hospital and I had to have several different surgeries and it was a nightmare. So here I am, a newly divorced quadriplegic that just lost custody of his children for no reason and now I have a horrible bone infection and I’m in the hospital. I thought my free life was over and when I was all healed up I would spend the rest of my life in a nursing home for sure. Thankfully I was wrong. My doctor ended up discharging me before I was completely healed and I was supposed to remain on bed rest. However upon getting home and getting things back in order I instantly started working on the process to regain custody of my children. Within a month I was off bed rest and they were living with me full time. My ex is doing really good now and my stepson lives with her full time. Him and I do keep in contact but not like it was back then. My daughter loves volleyball and placed Varsity twice. She gets good grades and she loves having time for her friends. My son is an active gamer and just got done with wrestling season. He gets really good grades as well. All three kids are doing really well these days. Better than I was when I was their age for sure. They are all about helping Dad out and sticking up for him, we love our I love yous and we don’t go anywhere without saying them.
Shortly after I got custody back was when covid-19 hit. It was a big deal for me because I lost all but one caregiver and the company that supplied my daytime caregivers had nobody that could come work for me. So for over 2 years I only had one caregiver and she is in her 60s and has bad knees. That being said she couldn’t work everyday of the week. So for over 2 years I couldn’t do anything but go to appointments and I practically spent two days a week without any caregivers. Just people popping in here and there to check on me. I couldn’t take my kids to the park I couldn’t go on drives I couldn’t do anything I was stuck in my house. It took a really long time before I finally found a second caregiver and when I did we went everywhere, you could not find me at home. Such good news right? Well yes, but, remember something negative always follows something positive in my life. About a month after the caregiver started I got a stage four pressure ulcer because the air cushion on my wheelchair went flat and I did not know it. I put myself on bed rest immediately and started getting every last ounce of nutrition I could. The doctor doesn’t understand it and it didn’t make sense to him, but, I was able to completely heal it in 5 months. I just got off bed rest the 8th of January and I was excited for spring… Excited to have fun with the kids, spend time outdoors, and do things like barbecue. One can hope. However as soon as I got off bed rest and things are looking good that’s when I got hit with the reality of my trust account and the negatives that come with that as well as a bad CV axle on my van. Got the axle fixed now I’m just focused on what I need to do to proceed with this trust. It is very overwhelming but I think it’s going to be all right. I’m trying to stay positive and upbeat as I know that being negative and dwelling on things only makes it worse.
The trust that I keep talking about is what’s known as a special needs Trust. It is supposed to pay for my needs Like caregivers and Specialty equipment that insurance will not cover for instance. Long story short it’s running out of money and it’s my responsibility to jump to action and do something about it. That being said it was initially set up to last for the rest of my life. I was also married at the time and we didn’t calculate the divorce. No more wife meant I now have to pay for night time care providers. There was also no way to know I would need to pay the very important and expensive costs of an attorney to establish child custody. At the time my ex-wife (she is doing good now) was making some horrible decisions and I had to make sure the kids were safe. Not to mention the impact covid-19 had on everything and everyone or how these things would impact the account. As of right now the trust is paying over $50,000 annually just for my night time caregivers. That doesn’t count any of my other necessities or anything. If I don’t figure it out now and jump to action, I am going to be forced to sell the house we are currently living in within the next year. We are talking about the house I thought I was being super responsible buying, the house I planned on leaving for my children when I pass, the house they have grown up in and is all they know… On top of that even if we do sell the house there is no way I can afford a monthly rent payment with little income I get each month. Realistically I need a four bedroom so that I can have at least one full-time caregiver that lives on site in case of emergency. As you can imagine the cost for care as a quadriplegic is extremely expensive compared to normal. The trust has been paying over $70,000 a year between caregivers and everything else it covers and now it’s almost depleted. There’s no way I can make up for it with my Social Security disability income. Like I mentioned earlier though, I think I might have found something that I can do to earn the money needed on my own. I just need to pay for the cost of the software and mentorship. So please check out my GoFundMe and let’s make sure I can seize this opportunity!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for taking the time to read through our story. I hope if nothing else this gives you a little inspiration and motivates you to try a little harder. I always tell myself it could be worse. Somehow I find the strength to keep getting up in the morning and grinding forward. The kids definitely help but Life’s too short to just be annoyed and sad all the time. Again thank you and Anything you can do to help is much appreciated and very much needed. Even if you just share my story. Anyhow We hope you have a wonderful day and lots of good fortune in the days, weeks, months, and years to follow! Thanks!
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask I will answer them as best I can. As I stated in the beginning of our story, I started this blog in hopes of creating a secondary income to help out. It’s going to take time and it’s going to be a while before it will generate any income, but, I am in good spirits and my hopes are high.
Feel free to email me directly at Donkey@uncledonkeystales.com
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Uncle Donkeys Tales 