This Fall I will be Crusin with NextStep up in wine country California to raise awareness and money for people living daily with paralysis. 

As most of you already know my wife Maya is a client at NextStep in Los Angeles where she is learning how to walk again after being attacked and shot in 2018. The attack took away the use of her legs. 

Maya along with many others rely on places like NextStep to get better. In order to have a CHANCE at getting better. She attends NextStep 4 days a week to work alongside some of the best in the business. Everyday she is gaining more and more strength with the goal of being able to stand up and engage lost muscle connections and someday take steps on her own again. 

Spinal cord injuries, Traumatic Brain Injuries, strokes, these are all life changing events. Events that can happen to anybody, anytime without any warning. 

After initial treatment and rehab in a hospital following any of the events above and depending on how severe the injury is, in the case of a spinal cord injury that leaves a person paraplegic if that individual even has insurance, physical therapy benefits are capped at (usually) a low amount of short weekly visits per year. The level of therapy offered in these short weekly bouts (usually 40-45 mins) is not enough and runs out quickly...then what? Go home and be paralyzed and wait for your benefits to start again next year? Or get proactive because you're one of the millions of people with a physical disability that has a chance to get better, be healthier and regain lost function but you need the right therapy and training to do that and you don't want to stop because of some bullshit insurance thing or lost benefits you want to work hard everyday to reach your goals in your new daily life. 

Janne Kouri was so proactive after his spinal cord injury that when he saw the need for NextStep he just made it happen and made it a reality. Because of Janne so many people have been helped and given a chance at working on their disability journey which may have otherwise ended with just accepting life in a wheelchair or starring at a wall at home all day and not getting the chance at engaging in a world where they still have a place and a role to play. The role of their own lives. 

This is why we need NextStep because there are so many people who ARE getting better with daily activity based training. From basic challenges to more intense training with specialized trainers who know how to elicit a response from the nervous system it's not just take grandma for a stroll its real hard work and real science. Implanted spinal cord stimulators, stem cells, nano particles it's all happening in the labs but the fundamental basis of any of these treatments involves putting the client through intense physical activity. The same therapy they get at NextStep everyday. 

I've seen people come in in wheelchairs and walk out a year later I'm telling you this stuff works. 

Disability is the only minority group that anyone can join at anytime. I read that a while ago and it really hit me. More than 6 million Americans living with paralysis and counting. Almost 50 new spinal cord injuries daily. The stigma of thinking when they see a person in a wheelchair that they must have been born with it. Or that strokes only hit old people. So many young, beautiful people who like Maya have had really bad luck or been struck with a medical issue were just that last second before the car hit or the gun fired or the accident on the slopes or in the water were where you are standing right now, in a world where your own mobility your own ability to walk was never in your mind questioned. Should they now just accept the rules and stop their healing journey because of medical insurance? Their whole lives still ahead and they should just give up and live in their wheelchairs? 

Hell NO! You need to advocate for yourself in life and especially in the disability world where life is hard just doing basics. 

NextStep is a true 501c3. A large part of the budget depends on fundraising on these rides so it is vital that we are successful in reaching our fundraising goal. No donation is too BIG or small and thank you in advance! Your charitable donations are tax deductible!

All the best and wish me luck!

Check out these links to see Maya at NextStep!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsmWls9G3m4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWFoDfl28zU

In 2019 Janne and friends rode across the United States, check out their story on Good Morning America!