00:00The first time I cried was after wiggling my toes for the first time because I just was
00:03so excited of like, wait, there's hope. On a random Sunday, I just started to feel like not
00:12well and I had really bad chest pain and back pain. Everyone's just trying to figure it out.
00:19So they were running all these different tests and then eventually I got an MRI and then the MRI
00:25showed that there was a mass on my spine. They like cultured the mass and then that showed that
00:30it was a staph infection. They got it out, but then obviously like now they saved my life. So now
00:36it's
00:36just the beginning of the road of, okay, well now I can't move or feel anything from the chest down.
00:42So now I have to start this journey of what's life going to look like? Can I regain, you know,
00:48the strength in my legs to walk again? But I had so much hope as the weeks went on and
00:53the months
00:53went on, I slowly started to see flickers. I started to feel things again. About six months
00:58after my injury, I was like, I want to get back into sports because I still had that in me.
01:05And so I went to this like camp for people with spinal cord injuries and brain injuries. And I
01:10basically tried just about every sport you could imagine. I was like, oh my gosh, like I can still
01:16have like my identity as an athlete, even though I'm paralyzed. After that weekend, I was like, oh,
01:23I'm totally not done being an athlete. Like I'm going to get back into this. I reached out to a
01:29few
01:29schools that had adaptive sports programs and Clemson was one of them. They're like, we would
01:35love to recruit you. And I was just like, I don't play tennis. And they basically were like, that's okay.
01:41You're athletic. Like we've seen your videos, like water skiing, doing CrossFit. Like we'll teach you.
01:45And so I went to school, um, come fall and I got to play on the tennis team for Clemson.
01:54It genuinely was like what I had dreamed of. And so it was just so cool that it was possible,
02:01even though I was in a wheelchair, little Sid's dreams are all coming true. It's not how I envisioned
02:08them when I was, you know, walking and doing all those things, but it's exactly what I always wanted.
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