The 4th edition of Spinal Network arrived the other day. It’s big and bold and for the first time, colorful. This book is so full of life it literally has a pulse; it’s so rich in character and dripping with personality that you just want to hug it. It’s so nourishing, in areas of medical, lifestyle, community, etc., that if you could fit it in the Cuisinart, you could make soup that would sustain you across the lifespan.
Those around the wheelchair world in the late 1980s ago might have gotten a copy of the first Spinal Network…back when it was subtitled the Total Resource for the Wheelchair Community by its creator, yours Madly. That was in Boulder, Colorado, 1988. The following year, the big book begat a periodical called Spinal Network Extra. Not much schwing to that so it became
New Mobility.
The Spine, as we used to call the big book, is now produced and edited in North Carolina by Jean Dobbs, who got caught up in its web not too long after the first edition came out. Jean came to Boulder to get her masters in journalism. She showed up at the office one day, wasn’t repelled by our aggressive spontaneity so I put her to work. When the enterprise was headed for the rocks after a second edition of Spinal Network drained the treasury, we got a rescue from Malibu, California. I was part of the deal, and Jean came along too; she has had a big hand in guiding both the magazine and Spinal book ever since. Kudos to you, Jean. Thanks for keeping this thing alive.
As for the new edition, as usual, it’s awesomely complete (to quote the LA Times from 21 years ago). I scribed the medical and cure sections again, so expect a balanced diet of advice, humor, truth, pathos and not much bathos. The rest of the book emerges from the collective voice of the spinal community – it you’re new to this paralysis thing, you need to hear it. If you’ve been around, you’ll enjoy the chorus and appreciate the validation.
Find more
here.
Mad
