Rolling Through Danny's Head

            Most people have a time in their lives they remember as a life changing experience.  For some it might be getting married, or having a child born.  Mine took place on September 20, 2004.  On this day seven of my friends and I were involved in a car accident that left me as a quadriplegic.  I do not recall the event of the accident, and after about a week of being in a coma from a head injury that caused my brain to bleed and swell, I had learned what happened and was told that I would never be able to regain functions from my chest down.  I also had a crushed right hand, a broken right scapula, and bruised lungs that were taking on liquid and causing me to drown.  While in the hospital, I was surviving with a respirator and stomach tube.  Unable to talk, eat, drink, or move; like many I assume in a similar situation, I was saddened and discouraged that someone would have to look after me for the rest of my life.  I felt that my life was over.   This disheartening news would later be a fact that I would ignore as well as prove wrong to the doctors and myself.   My name is Danny Miller and this is my autobiography, not from when I was born, but when I was given a second outlook on life.   At the time of the accident I had just turned twenty-four years old, still a young man by standards with my whole life ahead of me.  As a healthy young man, I was arrogant and proud, active in all types of thrills and adventures.  I enjoyed anything that challenged, and scared me.  I partook in such things as Paintball, dirt bike riding, snowboarding, wake boarding, scuba diving, and rock climbing.     As well as staying busy with adventures I also worked full time at the family Paintball Park, and was attending college full time in order to earn my degree in criminal justice.  My boy hood dream was to be a FBI agent.  I wanted to be the man you see read about or see in movies that ended some political regimes plan to take over the world, or stop some cataclysmic event that would kill hundreds of people.  I knew that what I saw in movies was fiction, but a boy could dream.  My father was in the Marines, so we moved a lot.   I was born in Hawaii, where I attended most of my Elementary school years.  I attended my junior high years in Orange County and my High school years in Murrieta.  After High School, I attended San Diego State University for a year, the Menifee junior college until I transferred to San Marcos last year.  Many might say that I lived my life as if there was no tomorrow, and maybe I did, but I made each day count, and as I was told by my father “that life is measured by the risks you take and the strides you make.”  As I look back, perhaps my arrogant and proud attitude was my down fall, and my injuries was a hard sit down about life, however, I believe that my arrogant, and proud attitude were the reasons for the next events to take place.  As an active young man, I was at a low point in my life when I was told by the doctors that I would not be able to live my life as I did and that I would be need someone to care for me.  I would be a twenty-four year old infant.  As I saw it, my life was over.  However, my family and friends did not see it that way and believed that I had the strength and fortitude to stand up to this challenge and beat it back, just as I did when I was challenged or scared by an adventure.  With much debate and tears, I finally agreed with them and fought to be a man again, perhaps even the man I was.  It took some time and a lot of hard work, but after about a year after the accident I regained movement in my arms and left hand as well as being able to stand and take some assisted steps with a walker.  Since then I continue to work out at Project Walk; the spinal cord injury recovery gym that helped me achieve my goal, as well as the local gym, and I continue to improve and regain strength.  Although some adventures that I enjoyed are a glimpse of hope to be able to partake in them again, and the dream of me being an FBI agent is over, I still hold fast to my sense of adventure and continue to partake in many of my old activities, just with some adaptations to them.  I also went back school, where in the future I hope to inspire young kids as a teacher to believe in anything and to never give up, no matter what others tell them.  My life is challenged everyday now even with the once simple tasks of tying my shoes, but I hold fast to my strength, and I am ambitious to see what the future has in store for me.  I see myself as a stronger person, a man at the age of twenty-nine that views life at a different height, and will roll through life with a stronger concept of family, friends, compassion, and the persistence to improve my life each step of the way. 

            Computers can easily frustrate me when things don’t work out the way they are supposing to.  I use computer devises everyday, and I am an apple fan.  I have an Apple computer, an Iphone, Ipad, and an Ipod.  I would consider myself as fairly knowledgeable when it comes to computers.  My friends think that I am a genius, but they have problems putting pictures on their facebook page.

            I believe the college mission statement has a well thought out point by teaching future teachers how to teach all kids and how to not be judgmental.  As a teacher, there will be many kids that will be in the classroom, and it is the teacher’s job to teach all kids in ways that they will all understand.