Tom Hoatlin, Ann Arbor CIL’s Director of Development, knows first-hand what it means to live with a spinal cord injury. Hoatlin sustained a spinal cord injury (SCI) in 1991 when he was shot in an armed robbery while managing a hotel in Livonia. “It’s been a long journey and it’s important to me to help others deal with the same experiences I’ve lived through.”
The Ann Arbor CIL has partnered with the University of Michigan’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation for more than 25 years. Today, Hoatlin and other peers with SCIs co-facilitate Independent Living classes and provide peer support at the University of Michigan Hospital, at Special Tree Rehabilitation in Romulus, and at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. The Ann Arbor CIL also runs its own SCI Resource Group.
“Often the patients we talk to have just been in a life-threatening, catastrophic accident and experienced a traumatic injury,” Hoatlin said. In the group sessions, he and the others often work with individuals with newly-acquired spinal cord injuries. When Ann Arbor CIL staff meet with them the first time they are only just beginning to realize the challenges that lie ahead of them. “In most cases the onset of their injury has been so catastrophic that they often don’t know where to begin,” Hoatlin added.
“Helping people learn how to come to terms with their life with a new disability is the hardest but most important thing we do,” Hoatlin said.
SCI Independent Living and peer support group discussions include topics such as home accessibility and modifications, health and nutrition with a SCI, bowel and bladder management, sexuality and relationships, family support, getting out in the community, transportation and driving, how to communicate about one’s disability, and sports and recreation options.
“There is promise when we, as people many years post-SCI, show up on the rehab unit,” Hoatlin said. “We demonstrate that we are happy, perhaps in relationships, have had children after injury, have traveled, and have succeeded and failed. Most importantly, we are leading meaningful lives.”