T4 Paraplegic Determined to One Day Complete Ironman

There's a specific date, July 20, 2007, that Tim Morris says he tries to forget.

In fact, he completely forgot about it when the four-year anniversary of the date came around last summer until a friend shot him a text with four words: "Thinking of you today."

The fifth anniversary came and went last week, and Morris is still up before dawn each day, working like crazy to do something most people take for granted – stand up and balance on two feet.

July 20, 2007 was the day that Morris suffered a T4 Spinal Cord Injury, or as he calls it, an SCI, when he was thrown from his Jeep Grand Cherokee.

It was the day Morris lost control of his body from the chest down.

It was the day that Morris' aspirations of teaching physical education and maintaining his job as a personal trainer took a difficult turn for the worse.

A nurse once even told Morris' father to get used to life in his wheelchair, because he is wasting his time with rehabilitation.

But preaching and rehashing negatives is something that Morris will never do, because he confidently says that his injury is the best thing that has ever happened to him.

"There was a person that was dormant inside of me, this maniac who I am now, Morris said. "I was just kind of coasting through life before. (The injury) gave me my true purpose in life."

Sure, the short-term goal is to stand up and to balance his body like he used to.

Morris is not and will not be satisfied with just standing.

He wants to walk. After that he wants to run. But someday, on a date in the future that Morris does think about all the time, a date that he can't name specifically, he wants to do the unthinkable – compete in Kona at the Hawai'i Ironman, or what he calls the "pinnacle" of athletic events.

"To me it's going to happen, Morris said. "Whether I'm in the Masters division, whatever. I'm going to get there. People will ask me, 'what's the prognosis? What did doctors tell you?' I'm a T4 complete. I'm not even supposed to have muscle contraction from the chest down."

But Morris says it's been years since he started blowing past the limitations that have been set for him.

Now his life is about working and blowing past more. Every day of his life, he says he mimics the routine of an infant – always moving, eating and sleeping.

"It's just doing thousands of repititions, whether it be squats with my walker or crawling around the basement or backyard," he said.

Morris calls it a "24-7 commitment," one that has been a detriment to some of his relationships and friendships.

"It all kind of takes a backseat to my goal right now," he said.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that Morris' "professional athlete" routine as he calls it also radiates from a serious belief in the Law of Attraction, and how his attitude in life is a choice.

"You choose your thoughts, your thoughts create your emotions and your emotions essentially drive your life," he said. "I don't believe any of this was by chance."

Morris admits that a lot of people in his life are different now than those who were there before the injury, and those are the relationships he values.

He also admits to a pre-injury laziness, an attitude that dissolved on the date he tries to forget.

"I've cut all the cords that connected me to failure, I just cut them completely," he said.

But that doesn't mean it was a smooth road, and it also doesn't mean there weren't a handful of shoulders to lean on, especially in the early stages following the accident.

Morris was comatose for a month after the crash. His sister Chris, who works as a night editor at the Boston Globe, came to his bedside each afternoon, writing what he calls an "amazing, tear-jerkingly emotional journal" while he was unconscious.

When Tim woke up and was ready to come home, his father moved from Derry and his sister from New Boston, where they built an accessible home for him in Windham with a first floor to himself.

It was across from Griffin Park, which Morris says "killed" him because he saw people playing basketball and tennis, the sports of his past, in the park right out of his window.

But other support systems came into Morris' life and centered his focus. Dan Parent, a Londonderry-based chiropractor, was one of those people.

"I was introduced to him and he really became my guiding force," Morris said. "He works more neurologically. Chiropractor – I just thought it was shifting bones around, but it's more neurological."

Parent introduced him to a massage therapist who became a close friend. She introduced him to her Derry-based trainer.

"So many of the most important people in my world I wouldn't even know if the injury had never happened," Morris said.

But one friend, Lisa Cote, Morris did know before the injury. He refers to her as a "genuinely good person," a relationship that he truly values.

She also understands the debilitating costs of an SCI, and decided in March she was going to put on a 5K at Windham High School for him.

"That blew me away," Morris said.

What it also did was create the perfect waypoint on his goal-setting map.

The date of the race is Aug. 11, and that is when Morris wants to stand freehand.

But Morris wakes up at 3 a.m. each day and knows that there is a date in the future where he will do much more than stand; much more than anyone with his injury has ever done.

"I'm not just trying to walk, I'm not just trying to run," he said. "I'm trying to take it to a new level. I don't foresee anything that's going to stop me from achieving these goals. The only thing that can stop me is me."

Tim Morris, now a Hudson resident, maintains a Tumblr blog titled "A Brand New Focus." You can keep up with his posts here.

Contact Lisa.cote@pfnolunks.com for more information about the "1st Annual Tim Morris SCI Rehabilitation 5K Race/Walk"