I felt my right foot slipping down the wet limestone.

Desperately, I dug my fingers into a crack in the cliff, trying to keep myself from losing my tenuous hold. Cold sweat started to form on my body as I realized the danger I was in.

My left foot was in a slightly awkward position, not offering much support. With my right foot sliding off, most of the weight was supported by my fingers, and I could feel the finger tendons strain to hold my weight. Pressing myself against the face of the cliff, I managed to keep myself from sliding further.

But now I was stuck in a precarious balance – any twitch or cramp in my muscles and I was going down. And then it happened. The dirt under my right foot was moving. It was not much, just a few loose stones that had accumulated on top of the tiny ledge over the years. But it was enough, given my shaky hold.

I screamed while tumbling from the wall. Flailing around wildly, I approached the ground at incredible speed. Branches whipped my face and body, as I crashed into a tree, and the world disappeared into a haze of red and white and pain.

“Fuck,” I woke up, covered in cold, clammy sweat, just like the sweat I had experienced that fateful day. Not that I could feel it on the rest of my body… but the sheen of sweat on my face and neck meant that I had soaked through my PJs.

Not a new experience either, as I have had these nightmares frequently since my accident four years ago. It was not always the same nightmare, as some of the details had become a bit hazy, but it usually ended the same way – crashing into the ground at high speed and experiencing that incredible pain.

I had been nineteen at the time, going to college on a Division I soccer scholarship. Fit, brash, and cocky, as perhaps many college guys are – something about hormones and being the first time out from underneath the parents’ thumbs.

After a couple of days of partying, my buddies and I decided on a whim on that ill-fated climbing trip in the Adirondacks, even though they don’t have particularly high cliffs there – mostly you can do bouldering or climb some smallish cliffs. Nothing to write about.

But therein was the danger… at least for someone slightly intoxicated - we had filched a couple of beers from a gas station while the attendant was in the restroom. My buddies were bragging about how they could climb any cliff, faster and better than the rest of us.

Just a typical stupid-ass pissing contest.

And I felt the need to prove myself. Such a fucking idiot. I have never been good with people, and so I always felt the need to impress other people so that they would accept me, want to be my friends and whatnot. And so, I said that I was going to free climb that cliff.

“No fucking way,” one of my friends had hollered. “You are insane.”

I still remembered that.

Half-way up the cliff, I deeply regretted my bravado. And for the next few years, I would curse myself for the idiot I had been.

Even though the height of the cliff was nothing to brag about, the fall was enough to break my spine at the neck and leave me completely paralyzed, without any feeling from my neck down. A quadriplegic is what they call it.

I remember being conscious when they brought me into the hospital and the grave expression on the faces of the doctors. They told my parents that my chances were slim to none. For survival, that is. They gave me a 0.1 percent chance. Not only did I break my spine, but I also had bones sticking out of various parts of my body, a heavy concussion, internal bleeding, and numerous other injuries.

But I have always been a fighter. If someone says, “You won’t make it”... I try extra hard.

I have always been like that. Stubborn to a fault. If I really care about something I doggedly pursue it until I achieve my goals. That is what got me that far in soccer. They said that I had a great shot at making it to the MLS and perhaps later to one of the big European clubs. The American Pele, perhaps. And I bought all that crap. Hubris, perhaps, but also the result of having too many bad people around me - sycophants, manipulative assholes, and users.

But after the accident that was a moot point anyway. It was clear that I was not going to play soccer any time soon. It was all about survival, and I was determined to prove the doctors wrong and survive.

And I did.

Perhaps I was just lucky, but I think that it was my dogged determination. I endured all the treatments and did whatever the doctors recommended and then some. After numerous surgeries, and many months of treatment, I was finally able to get back home, albeit as a quadriplegic.

Before the accident, life had been good, but things changed after I became disabled. First, my girlfriend left me. Saying something like that she was too young to take care of me for the rest of her life and that we had not been that serious anyway. Even though I could rationally understand her decision, it still hurt like a bitch.

At the very least, she could have waited a bit before breaking the news. Way to kick someone when they are already down. Some of my so-called friends never even made it to the hospital. Others did stick with me for a while, but gradually lost interest in hanging out.

Not that I could blame them really. The first couple of years after the accident, I was often in a foul mood, and no-one likes listening to a whiner. And who wants to push around a dude in a wheelchair for fun?

I guess I should have offered to come with them to the bars so that they could pick up chicks… some girls really like a guy that takes care of a person in need. Shows that they are caring guys, prime husband material, or whatever.

Then again, my college buddies would probably rather run away than getting into the whole husband material situation. For that matter, most college girls weren’t really into the husband thing either... so probably the entire “plan” did not make any sense anyway. Not that I proposed it, because, hey, even though I needed someone to clean my butt a couple of times a day I still had my pride.

After a couple of years drifting around and getting more and more depressed, I finally realized that I needed to change something. I used to be focused on mostly physical activities to spend my free time, ranging from soccer to volleyball, basketball, tennis, swimming, hiking, and camping all the way to reenactment, including swordsmanship. Not that I was great in all of them, but I did enjoy them quite a bit. I also liked reading, but mostly for pleasure or for things that were directly related to my hobbies, like historical accounts of medieval battles or weaponry.

Now, I decided it was time to study something difficult that not everyone could do and thus prove to myself that I was still worth something.

Partially inspired by Stephen Hawking, who had achieved amazing success despite being a quadriplegic as well, albeit due to sickness, I ended up enrolling in college with a major in physics. I also took a minor in history, because, well, history is cool. Pretty useless as a minor in conjunction with physics, perhaps, but I was beyond caring about practical or not at that point. Chances were that I was not going to get a job later anyway.

Studying was a challenge, but one I embraced. Of course, many things I could not do on my own. I needed help from professional caregivers - Annie, Debbie, and Sue were the lucky nurses. Annie was easily my favorite because she was caring, funny, and yet a no-nonsense person. She did not take shit from me and was able to dish it out as she got it.