Hi and thank you for visiting my crowdfund page. Since 2013 I roll through life in a wheelchair, after my legs were paralyzed in a traffic accident. Recently my leg's muscles have improved drastically after two intensive rehabilitation periods in Barcelona and Cambridge.
Support + share this campaign and help me to realize this important life goal through the contribution of you and your friends!
What Happened?
April 2013. After being involved in a traffic accident in Thailand I got an operation on my broken back and was repatriated to Belgium. There Belgian doctors could only note that their Thai colleagues had done a professional job and that their findings were similar. A short week later I left the hospital and entered a rehabilitation center. Two months and a half later I was released from the hospital, and got the message that I could head home.
My life could start again, although now in a wheelchair. Since that day I have made it my goal to live an active life, as I did before my accident. I am co-founder of the app On Wheels that serves as a city guide for people in a wheelchair. More than 22000 locations have been mapped in more than 7 Belgian cities.
How does On Wheels work?
The majority of my days are spent improving my condition through daily exercises. Daily needs are taking up a big part of my schedule and my budget.
In November 2019 I traveled to Cambridge, where I dedicated myself to a two month intensive physical rehab program at a renowned physiotherapy center called Prime Physio. The center has an outstanding reputation for achieving great progress in the field of rehabilitation for people with a spinal cord injury.
For two months I focused my mind and body on the task at hand: learning to walk again. One hour of walking around the block per day with my crutches. One hour of handbiking to keep up my cardio, and two hours of intensive physiotherapy at Prime Physio. The work I did there consisted of two main pillars: engaging exercises that target the muscle groups that need to regenerate in order to create the possibility to walk and get stronger; and a second component that was FES-therapy. FES stands for Functional Electronic Stimulation and basically means a system that stimulates the individual muscles through very specific electronic impulses. This stimulation can for example be used on high level athletes to increase their performance through an increase of muscle mass, but in my case it is used to wake up, stimulate and help grow the muscles that allow me to walk. For a period of two months I used FES almost on a daily basis. The effects were enormous: my legs became a lot stronger, the pains I used to cope with on a regular basis decreased significantly and most of all my walking became much more confident and sturdy. All of this makes that as of today my legs are stronger then ever. A month ago I have walked the distance of 2200 meters and last week I even did not use my wheelchair for almost two whole days!
Watch me walk over 2K!
Why Crowdfunding?
This powerfull progress made me decide to make it my goal to engage with FES on a daily basis in order to train my muscles for permanent walking. In order to do that I want to purchase an FES system called Rehamove/Motomed that allows me to train my muscles thoroughly every day. The research is clear: this is a gamechanger for physical rehabilitation.
Today I am asking you to support me in the next stage of my Rehab To Walk Again project: purchasing the FES system.
I believe it is important to be transparent regarding the funding, so here are the numbers:
- Funds Emilie Leus & Funds Filliers, two funds that are governed by the Koning Boudewijnstichting, have granted me €10.000. A huge headstart in realizing this giant leap towards walking.
- The FES system Rehamove/Motomed costs €11900
- The estimated cost of running this campaign on Go Fund Me will be around €100.
This means that today I am looking for your support in gathering the amount of €2000.
Support and Share
In order to be able to realize this next step of my plan to walk again I am kindly asking you to give a contribution to my campaign. If you are not able to support, you can help by sharing my campaign through social media, email or just by talking about it to your friends or family. If every person who reads this shares it to 5 people, my campaign will reach it's goal in no time.
I wish to thank all the people who supported me with donations in the past, the people who reached out and spoke words of encouragement, support. It is a very substantial part of what made me believe in walking again. After all perception is everything, seeing people belief in my ability to do this affirmed my belief that I can in so many ways. I am deeply grateful and feel blessed for the support of my family, friends, organizations like the Koning Boudewijn foundation, Funds Emilie Leus and Funds Filliers. All of the people that I do not know but who are sympathetic to my cause. You are making the dream that is the closest to my heart, seem within reach more every day:
Walking again, and freeing myself from my wheelchair.
Words can not describe how empowering this is. Thank you so much.
Michiel
Support + share this campaign and help me to realize this important life goal through the contribution of you and your friends!
What Happened?
April 2013. After being involved in a traffic accident in Thailand I got an operation on my broken back and was repatriated to Belgium. There Belgian doctors could only note that their Thai colleagues had done a professional job and that their findings were similar. A short week later I left the hospital and entered a rehabilitation center. Two months and a half later I was released from the hospital, and got the message that I could head home.
My life could start again, although now in a wheelchair. Since that day I have made it my goal to live an active life, as I did before my accident. I am co-founder of the app On Wheels that serves as a city guide for people in a wheelchair. More than 22000 locations have been mapped in more than 7 Belgian cities.
How does On Wheels work?
The majority of my days are spent improving my condition through daily exercises. Daily needs are taking up a big part of my schedule and my budget.
In November 2019 I traveled to Cambridge, where I dedicated myself to a two month intensive physical rehab program at a renowned physiotherapy center called Prime Physio. The center has an outstanding reputation for achieving great progress in the field of rehabilitation for people with a spinal cord injury.
For two months I focused my mind and body on the task at hand: learning to walk again. One hour of walking around the block per day with my crutches. One hour of handbiking to keep up my cardio, and two hours of intensive physiotherapy at Prime Physio. The work I did there consisted of two main pillars: engaging exercises that target the muscle groups that need to regenerate in order to create the possibility to walk and get stronger; and a second component that was FES-therapy. FES stands for Functional Electronic Stimulation and basically means a system that stimulates the individual muscles through very specific electronic impulses. This stimulation can for example be used on high level athletes to increase their performance through an increase of muscle mass, but in my case it is used to wake up, stimulate and help grow the muscles that allow me to walk. For a period of two months I used FES almost on a daily basis. The effects were enormous: my legs became a lot stronger, the pains I used to cope with on a regular basis decreased significantly and most of all my walking became much more confident and sturdy. All of this makes that as of today my legs are stronger then ever. A month ago I have walked the distance of 2200 meters and last week I even did not use my wheelchair for almost two whole days!
Watch me walk over 2K!
Why Crowdfunding?
This powerfull progress made me decide to make it my goal to engage with FES on a daily basis in order to train my muscles for permanent walking. In order to do that I want to purchase an FES system called Rehamove/Motomed that allows me to train my muscles thoroughly every day. The research is clear: this is a gamechanger for physical rehabilitation.
Today I am asking you to support me in the next stage of my Rehab To Walk Again project: purchasing the FES system.
I believe it is important to be transparent regarding the funding, so here are the numbers:
- Funds Emilie Leus & Funds Filliers, two funds that are governed by the Koning Boudewijnstichting, have granted me €10.000. A huge headstart in realizing this giant leap towards walking.
- The FES system Rehamove/Motomed costs €11900
- The estimated cost of running this campaign on Go Fund Me will be around €100.
This means that today I am looking for your support in gathering the amount of €2000.
Support and Share
In order to be able to realize this next step of my plan to walk again I am kindly asking you to give a contribution to my campaign. If you are not able to support, you can help by sharing my campaign through social media, email or just by talking about it to your friends or family. If every person who reads this shares it to 5 people, my campaign will reach it's goal in no time.
I wish to thank all the people who supported me with donations in the past, the people who reached out and spoke words of encouragement, support. It is a very substantial part of what made me believe in walking again. After all perception is everything, seeing people belief in my ability to do this affirmed my belief that I can in so many ways. I am deeply grateful and feel blessed for the support of my family, friends, organizations like the Koning Boudewijn foundation, Funds Emilie Leus and Funds Filliers. All of the people that I do not know but who are sympathetic to my cause. You are making the dream that is the closest to my heart, seem within reach more every day:
Walking again, and freeing myself from my wheelchair.
Words can not describe how empowering this is. Thank you so much.
Michiel