He's the typical, all-American dad--husband, father of 2 and softball coach. But for Theo Braddy, life has been anything but typical. Thirty years ago, the world as he knew it changed in an instant. A football injury left him paralyzed from the neck down. “After coming home from the hospital I didn't have any options. My mother didn't know what to do, so I did the only thing that was in front of us and that was to put myself in a nursing home,” says Theo Braddy. Theo was only 15 years old. “That was my situation. It wasn't my only option, it's just I didn't know any better.” A maze of confusion followed. It took years for Theo to navigate through and learn about all the resources available to help him live his life. But through that struggle, came a vision. “Wouldn't it be great if there was somewhere you can go where a person who is newly disabled could benefit and have access to resources so they wouldn't have to make the same mistakes I had to make going through my situation,” says Braddy. And Living Well With A Disability was born. It's a one-stop-shop for people with any type of disability to learn about and obtain resources and opportunities available to them; taking the guess work out what can be a very difficult time. “You know you can still drive, you might be paralyzed from the neck down, but there is technology out there where you can still drive...there are technologies and resources that will still allow you to go college, there are resources available for you to still get a job and work,” says Braddy. The agency is staffed only with people with disabilities; not only providing options and resources, but personal experience. “It's exciting to bring that knowledge to someone and they see that just because they have a disability that life doesn't end--that they can go on and they can still do whatever they want to do before they had a disability,” says Braddy.
You can see the Living Well With A Disability series the first Tuesday of every month on CBS 21 News at 6pm and on CBS 21 News at 10pm on the CW 15.
Also check out my blog here on CBS21.com where you can read about why this program and its mission is so important to me and CBS 21 News.
If you know someone living well with a disability, you can nominate them for our next story. Just fill out the form by clicking on the Living Well link on the left side of the page.
