Help Paul Walk Again With His Son

My name is Paul Erickson and am a father to my son Satchel. I had a father that did everything he could for me growing up. He stood by my side through thick and thin, he coached me, played with me, and kept me safe. When I became a father, all I wanted and was driven to do was the same for my son and if everything was taken from me but this honor as a father, I would die a happy man.

If I knew what was going to happen on the morning of December 5th heading to work, I would have never stopped embracing my 5-year-old boy and just spent the day running and playing with him, knowing it might never happen again. I was heading to work on that winter morning on a local road and I hit a patch of black ice which threw my truck into a ditch rolling the truck over. This crushed the driver’s side cab and myself breaking my C5-C7 vertebrae leaving me as a quadriplegic. As a teacher and coach, I always told my students and players to face hardships with the idea that it’s only temporary, with each other and faith anything is possible to get through. I’ve done good in this world and lived through many mistakes of my own doing, but not being able to hold my son up is one uphill battle that’s been almost impossible to accept.

My son asks me everyday if I’m going to stand up again and take him to a park. I work tirelessly each day rehabbing and pushing the impossible boundaries for the purpose of giving him an able body father, and to develop and promote at home therapy routines for quadriplegic parents to get back on their feet. Through research and counseling with other quadriplegics and paraplegics and my passionate physicians, I have found there is progress happening in ways of aggressive therapy and stem cell injections. To become a candidate in the states for stem cell or advance therapy is like winning the lottery due to the limited number of patients in each trial/phase. But U.S. doctors have continued work outside the states to help patients and advance best practice protocols to bring their research back to the states but need patients. Best outcomes for spinal cord stem cell injections are within the first year of injury and I’m currently at nine months post injury.

I have currently been accepted as a candidate in Panama City at the Stem Cell Institute. This comes with a cost. The costs of traveling, board and medical is $27,485 for two weeks of therapy and injections, in which I can be scheduled. Any help will be greatly appreciated, and time is of importance with my injury as my secondary medical conditions worsen due to neurological complications to my organs. I owe it to my son to try everything possible, but more importantly turn my tragedy into research and medical advancement for parents and patients with spinal cord injuries, and to give hope that there are options out there. God is guiding me every step of the way and proof is that I’m alive to see my son grow up. Thank you for your support and please support our local U.S. clinics such as UW Medical Center, Shirley Ryan at Northwestern and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.