I’m 52 now.
When I was 28, one autumn morning on my way to work installing metal chimneys, I turned off the main road onto a smaller one that hadn’t been cleared. Ice lay hidden under snow. I was driving carefully, seatbelt on, even slower than the speed limit—about 40 km/h (25 mph).
Suddenly the wheels started spinning, and even though the ABS was working, I slid into the opposite lane and then off the road. Slowly I rolled into a ditch, and my van, loaded with chimneys and carrying two people who worked with me, flipped onto its roof. Right where my head was, under the roof, there was a stone. I couldn’t bend sideways like the two people with me, because they weren’t wearing seatbelts. I couldn’t move, and I broke my neck. I had a serious head injury too. The others escaped with just a big scare—thank God they were fine—but the van was crushed like a tin can.
Since then, I’ve been completely paralyzed from the armpits down. I don’t feel my fingers. My arms function only partly—I can bend them, but I can’t straighten them without using my shoulders. My palms move only partly, and with great effort I managed to regain somewhat normal breathing, which at first nobody believed I could regain. With willpower, exercising for years, I managed to learn—with the help of my shoulders—to straighten and bend my arms. I also managed to learn to write by attaching a glove to a computer mouse and putting it on my palm. I exercise a lot and try to get outside in my wheelchair.
Exactly a year ago, I was in the hospital with stomach problems, and that’s where lung problems started. Again, nobody believed I could breathe on my own. The best doctors thought I’d need to live with a breathing machine. But more than a year has passed, and I’ve proven that with willpower I can be stronger than all the negative predictions—and I breathe on my own again. I even record audiobooks in my native language. Recently I started using a program that turns voice into text, which has been a huge breakthrough for me in communicating with the world.
When I was in the hospital the first time, people often said right next to me, without any shame, that I wouldn’t survive, and if I did, I’d surely be a vegetable… Instead, with lots of training and financial support from people, I’ve managed to live and even create poetry. I’ve published three books and actively make music together with artificial intelligence. I’m also very interested in creating 3D-printable art objects, and in recent years I’ve tried writing in English too. As you can guess, art is everything to me. I’m also fascinated by AI front-end architectures and their development in art. Creative ideas are the food and freedom of my soul, possible only when I’m at home—and that’s only possible if you support me.
Five years ago, my mother, who had been my only support, passed away, and now I fight alone.
In my country, the allowance for a paralyzed person who needs 24-hour care is only enough to cover five working days a month, and it goes entirely to paying caregiver-nurses. Beyond that, no one cares. I’m not complaining, but I want you to understand why I’m forced to talk about this: I must pay three full salaries every month to be able to live and create in my own apartment.
Two full salaries go to daytime care (two caregiver-nurses who alternate every other day). Because the evening hours are much shorter, evening care is split between two caregiver-nurses, and together it adds up to one more salary. Even so, I can only afford help during the day and for a short time in the evening (from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and again from 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.). Then I’m alone through the night until the next day shift.
If you accept and understand this, I invite you to support me in whatever way is most convenient for you. Traditional support is shrinking, because the cost of living here has risen sharply. That’s why I do—and will keep doing—even more to reach wider audiences outside my country. Thank you in advance for reading all this.
You can reach me on Facebook: Reinis Runcis.
And finally—I desperately want to stay for some time in this fast-changing world, full of things that fascinate me, while I also try in different ways to be useful to others. If you enjoy my songs or any of my projects, or if I can inspire you, I warmly invite you to become my supporter and help shape our future together!
Best wishes,
Reinis Runcis
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