Summer time! The time of year when we can enjoy warm summer evenings and we sincerely hope you are enjoying them!
DLM wants to thank our model for coming out and participating in a few shots for us!
MEET THE MODEL
JEN – T8 paraplegic
Essentially, I’m just a sweet, goofy, genuine, and determined girl who tries to start each day with a grateful heart, particularly because of what happened to me on March 31, 2008. Towards the end of March in 2008, I thought I had the flu and over the course of a week, I randomly became paralyzed from a virus and was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis.
Although I became a paraplegic, what I experienced has allowed me to grow tremendously, both mentally and emotionally. I spent the first two years doing intense physical therapy and learning how to walk with leg braces and a walker. I still get in my leg braces and walker from time to time and it’s an astonishing feeling of accomplishment as well as extremely good for my body.
I’ve always been a gym rat, so when I became paralyzed, I didn’t let my paralysis get in the way of how much I enjoy lifting weights and experiencing a good cardio exercise, so I still get to the gym 3-4 times a week. I also went back to graduate school and started and finished my Masters of Arts in English, and I am currently teaching English to college freshmen.
Finally, I got the chance to travel around the world and see some unfathomably beautiful places that I never thought I’d see. Basically, paralysis has taught me that saying goodbye to my body is a complicated process and is one that may never end, but that saying hello to my new self is just as complicated and is in extension, absolutely incredible and fulfilling.
Furthermore, I have embraced the idea as Anthony Hopkins brilliantly illuminates in the movie “Meet Joe Black”, to “be deliriously happy or at least leave yourself open to be”. I believe that to “be deliriously happy or at least leave yourself open to be” is an unspeakably extraordinary way to view life as well as live life, and I’m going to keep clinching onto that concept forever and ever.
PHOTOGRAPHY / EDITING
Andrew Angulo – DLM
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