I’ve been struggling with my career path, now that everything is different. Working in a lab while in a wheelchair has many problems. Space in research buildings is at a premium and many storage solutions involve building up. Also, I have to constantly negotiate narrow gaps between equipment, shelving and benches. I have to carry dangerous or delicate reagents from place to place… this now involves putting them in my lap, since I have to push my chair with both hands. Overall, it is a difficult work environment. Stanford has provided me with a great resource: their office of Accessible Education is paying for me to have a tech, part-time. This makes it possible for me to do experiments again. But is this a reasonable solution for the long term?

What makes all my decisions harder is the absolute absence of information on my recovery timeline or final prognosis. How much longer will I be in the chair? How long will I be on crutches? Will I ever stop needing the crutches? No one knows. Doctors can tell me so little. Every SCI patient is different, even when injured at the same level. I’ve talked to several people with L1 fractures and still haven’t met anyone with a recovery timeline that matches mine. So, how do I move forward? I wanted to be a postdoc before. But do I want to be a postdoc in a wheelchair? Do I want to be a postdoc on crutches? Will I need a tech for the rest of my career? Do other Universities have accessibility programs similar to Stanford? Would a professor even hire me given my limitations?

The problem besides the information problem is a motivation problem. I used to care deeply about peering into the unknown. Being on the cusp of knowledge and posing interesting questions. I am studying stem cells involved in reproduction. I am interested in why organisms age. But recently… my body has been a more immediate problem. Heading into lab to finish my thesis research seems like a distraction from more pressing questions. I want to figure out my new body and my new life. So why am I pipetting again?

This brings me to my final, most recent realization. It was difficult to admit to myself that this injury to my body has changed the focus of my mind. Perhaps not being willing to admit this in the first place is why it took me so long to figure out the next step. It turns out: I can do research on spinal cord injury and recovery. For my postdoc. It would be a slight change of field, but nothing dramatically different from what usually happens in academia. Watching Hugh Herr’s talk and seeing his focus on solving his problem reminded me of this option. This new target to my research seems to solve my motivation problem. I am definitely interested in pipetting again if it brings us closer (even just a little) to solving something so fundamental to who I am. I love the idea of making my research so… personal.

But this does not solve the information problem.