30 Days, Season 3, Episode 2 – From the NFL to Quad Rugby
Spurlock is only a voice over this week as he hands over the 30 Day mantle to former NFL star Ray Crockett. Spurlock VOs that Americans love their football. They are the modern day gladiators and we see many a football hit in montage. Spurlock says that they never know where the next big collision will come from, and we see him in a locker room set for that line as he is “hit” by a player and taken off-screen.
We learn that a quarter of a million people fall into the quadriplegic or paraplegic categories. We see Bush Sr. signing the Americans with Disabilities Act which led to new ramps and other upgrades in the infrastructure for these folks. Makes you realize that all it takes is an idiot son for your own presidency to get more respect.
Spurlock continues that unless someone like Superman gets injured, the para and quad communities are usually swept under the rug. With the stem cell debate and the increasing amount of wounded coming back from war, the issue is once again back in the public eye. He wonders what it would be like to live the life and thus will put an NFL athlete in a wheelchair, for 30 days.
Credits.
Spurlock says that it was not easy to find an athlete to sit in the chair, and from what I read he was turned down repeatedly, until he found a former football player that has two Super Bowl rings willing to do it. We are in Dallas and Ray Crockett is coaching Ray Jr.’s game. He spent 14 years in the NFL as a defensive back with the Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs.
We also meet his wife and high school sweetheart, April, who is filming her son’s game and whooping it up. They have three kids and Ray yells at his boy to “get your head in the game!” We then move on to discussing Mike Utley, the lineman on the Detroit Lions that was paralyzed in a game that Crockett was playing. I remember that and it was pretty scary and awfully sobering to watch.
Ray remembers thinking “what if it was me” and lamenting the fact that society may rally around this person right away, but we really don’t follow up on the story. He is interested in finding out for himself.
In 30 Days Cartoon Form we find out the rules of the game. Ray will be confined to a chair and be allowed to stretch his legs once a day to avoid any lasting damage. He will participate in Quad Rugby, the game that has been depicted in the movie Murderball and on the woefully under-watched TV show Friday Night Lights. He will also be checking in with other patients to watch them on the road to recovery and preparation for what lies ahead.
Before Day 1, Ray is already having second thoughts and he shares them with his wife in his kick-ass, awesome bedroom. Let’s get this out of the way now. Ray has an amazing house and it really, really pays to be a good football player. Ray is scared and April tries to comfort him
Baylor University Rehab Institute. We meet Dr. Lance Bruce, an unfortunate case of two first names and lame ones to boot. Dr. Bruce tells Ray that without the daily stretch, he could develop blood clots that could be dangerous. He lets Ray know that he will be appreciating the frustration felt by the P/Q community when they can only view the belt buckle of able bodied people rather than be able to look them in the eye. People will actually look at April when talking as if Ray were “deaf and dumb.”
Dr. Bruce thinks this experiment will be helpful and Ray is just about to begin. First we get a lesson on spinal injuries. The higher up on the spine, the more severe. Paraplegics suffer from thoracic spinal injuries in the lower part of the spine, while Quadriplegics suffer from cervical injuries. These result in a loss of some use of all four limbs, C1-C3 injuries and you cannot breathe without a respirator, while C4-C7 can leave use in some limbs.
We meet Shannon Davis, a 34-year-old woman that just suffered a spinal injury in a car accident. She tells Ray as she undergoes therapy that her life is completely different now. She used to play softball, run, etc. She thinks that she has to keep a positive outlook to survive and find a reason that fate has put her in this position. I would say that would be a necessity if you were in Shannon’s shoes.
Ray realizes that everyone is vulnerable no matter who you are or how physically fit you are. He is shown the chair by a dude named Kenny. Ray is thinking, “What have I gotten myself into?” Most quadriplegics use power chairs but Ray is getting a manual one so he can get a fuller effect. He realizes how much shape you need to be in to maneuver one of them. He goes to the car with April and says that he was already receiving stares from passersby. They load him up in the car and he says “oh s**t,” not bleeped by FX, I might add, and gets a “watch your mouth” from his wife. I wonder if that is common practice in the Crockett household or if that is just because he is cussing on TV.
Ray wonders about the expenses that you would accrue being in a chair. In a TH, Ray Jr. says that things are strange because he can’t just go play catch or work out with his dad. Ray realizes how narrow his doors are and that no matter how palatial the Crockett Compound is, it is not wheelchair accessible. He now is noticing the number of steps and the tight fit to get into the bathroom. He is finding new ways to live in his own house.
Commercials – Pizza Hut does pasta, doesn’t mean you have to eat it.
Day 2. Ray has an adventure getting in the shower and April struggles to help him. He is learning that the morning routine for people in chairs is a lengthy ordeal. He is getting frustrated already.
He goes to see Shannon and she is in bed trying to build up strength and coordination. She cannot wriggle up to a seated position yet. Damn, this lady is going through some serious crap here. She is my wife’s age and it is somewhat difficult to watch with that thought.
Leslie Cunningham is her Rehab Therapist and she reminds us that Shannon has no abs to life herself up and has to learn a new way of doing it. She has some S&M loops and straps set up and Shannon is learning how to use them to get up so that she doesn’t “yell for my mom every five minutes.” Let that sink in for a minute. A 34-year-old woman has to live with her mom again because she can’t lift herself out of bed yet.
Day 3. More struggles for the Crocketts as April is learning what life is like for a caregiver. She says she cannot do her normal stuff because she is on call all day to shuttle Ray around to various business meetings. They have a bit of a spat after she doesn’t park the car properly and you can see the stress already getting to them. Imagine what happens to marriages when this actually happens. I wonder how many break up.
Anyway, April makes it clear that she doesn’t want to be his Elaine Nardo and he needs to retrofit the car so he can drive it himself. Ray is sitting in on group therapy and meets Matt Pool who has been in a chair for 15 years. Another dude is there after a 110 mph motorcycle accident. He has a wife and a kid, a child born a month after the accident. This means he was riding his motorcycle at 110 mph with an 8-month pregnant wife at home. I won’t say another word.
Anyway, he laments about not being able to hold the baby whenever he wants to. What gets me is the wife talking about how the kid climbs on his lap and pulls up on his shirt to be held by daddy. We then watch her start to do just that. Excuse me, I need a moment.
Matt says that everyone wants to lend a hand and that it gets old real fast. When you can do things for yourself you get very proud.
Day 4. Ray has spent $50,000 to retrofit his house. He cops to the fact that he can and not everyone in that position is able to.
Day 6. Matt is over for a playdate. He wants some of Ray’s new gadgets. Ray shows him the game room and his NFL mementos. Matt tells him his story about how he swung from a rope over a 20 foot cliff and jumped for the “blue hole that was safe to land in.” Instead he fell 30 feet into about eight inches of water. He was 17. He opened his eyes and saw a green blur and thought he was dead.
Matt takes Ray outside and shows him his totally pimped out pickup truck. Seriously, it is real cool. He drives Ray to his house and we see what happens to regular people’s homes, as corners are torn apart from the chair and the bathroom looks to be a nightmare. Ray wonders how life could have been much better for Matt if he had just a bit more square footage.
Matt and Ray philosophize about whether they could deal with a more severe injury than the one Matt has. Matt thinks from time to time that he could. Ray would like to think he could. With some help from Matt, it seems that Ray is overcoming some of his fears.
Commercials – I don’t think I understand how Hotwire works – I can never find those deals.
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