A good friend lately requested me what my secret SCI obsession was. Initially confused, I tamped down the intuition to ask what the hell she was speaking about, pressured a pensive face and blurted out, “Monkeys.”

Earlier than she might verbalize the confusion on her face, I attempted to elucidate.

I informed her my simian obsession dated again to the early days of my preliminary rehab stint. In these darkish occasions, somebody threw out the thought of a canine companion in hopes of brightening my day. My lack of enthusiasm will need to have been apparent, as a result of the dialog shortly segued to much less conventional companion animals and, ultimately, to monkeys.

I used to be bought.

Let me preface this by saying, sure, I do know monkeys and gorillas will not be the identical, however …

I immediately pictured myself driving a large silverback caregiver. Who wants pivot transfers or sliding boards when you might have a mushy, cuddly 400-pound ball of muscle mass to swing you round? I might cling to his again or he might effortlessly swoop me round. I may not even want a wheelchair!

The nurses and therapists bought an excellent snicker out of my dream, and it took my thoughts off the much less cheery actuality of inpatient rehab. Perhaps that will have been the top of my monkey obsession, if not for the unit psychologist.

She remembered studying about a spot that truly skilled (a lot smaller) capuchin monkeys to assist quadriplegics and supply emotional help. She couldn’t keep in mind the place she’d examine it, however she swore there was a film concerning the service and promised to assist observe it down.

It wasn’t my silverback, however the thought of a cute, tiny monkey serving to me existed proper on the good intersection of fascinating, ridiculous and hilarious in order to make it unforgettable. With out the moment gratification of in the present day’s web (it was 1998), my creativeness ran wild anticipating what the helper monkey setup would really appear to be.

I didn’t have to attend lengthy, as any individual discovered the title of the film and tracked down an previous VHS copy. I can nonetheless keep in mind somebody rolling one of many previous TV/video carts into my room and displaying me the film field: Monkey Shines. The quilt featured a psychotic-looking stuffed monkey holding a bloody straight razor with the caption “An Experiment in Concern.”

As I watched the quadriplegic protagonist attempt to save all of his associates from the homicidal wrath of the possessed primate, I couldn’t cease fascinated by how genuinely excited the psychologist was upon listening to I used to be going to observe the film. I questioned if she had any thought the movie wasn’t a documentary a few service monkey group, however fairly a psychological horror movie about an ill-adjusted quad and the scientifically-altered monkey that serves as a bodily manifestation of his rage. As ridiculous because it was to be watching this in SCI rehab as a newly-injured 18-year-old, the very fact she had all however endorsed it blew my thoughts.

Any critical flirtation with the thought of getting a helper monkey ended there for me, however my obsession with the idea solely grew. My mother and father and I sometimes joked about my caregiver ape, and I made a degree of recommending Monkey Shines to any quad associates who hadn’t seen it. Fifteen years later, I even wrote a narrative a few Massachusetts nonprofit that truly supplied quadriplegics with skilled monkeys.

By the point I completed relaying all of this to my good friend, she had completely checked out. “That’s humorous,” she mentioned, “however I used to be simply looking for out if there’s a wheelchair consumer you secretly observe.”

Oh. “Not likely.”