full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Janine Shepherd: A broken body isn't a broken person
Unscramble the Blue Letters
(Gasps)
I tried to grsap what she was saying. I was an athlete. That's all I knew. That's all I'd done. If I couldn't do that, then what could I do? And the question I asked myself is: If I couldn't do that, then who was I?
They moved me from intensive care to acute spinal. I was lying on a thin, hard spinal bed. I had no movement in my legs. I had thgit snkcitgos on to ptcreot from blood clots. I had one arm in plaster, one arm tied down by drips. I had a neck brace and sandbags on either side of my head and I saw my world through a mirror that was suspended above my head. I shared the ward with five other ppeloe, and the amazing thing is, because we were all lying paralyzed in a spinal ward, we didn't know what each other looked like. How amazing is that? How often in life do you get to make fpidirnhess, judgment-free, purely based on sriipt? And there were no superficial cevoasonrints as we shared our innermost thoughts, our faers, and our hopes for life after the spinal ward.
Open Cloze
(Gasps)
I tried to _____ what she was saying. I was an athlete. That's all I knew. That's all I'd done. If I couldn't do that, then what could I do? And the question I asked myself is: If I couldn't do that, then who was I?
They moved me from intensive care to acute spinal. I was lying on a thin, hard spinal bed. I had no movement in my legs. I had _____ _________ on to _______ from blood clots. I had one arm in plaster, one arm tied down by drips. I had a neck brace and sandbags on either side of my head and I saw my world through a mirror that was suspended above my head. I shared the ward with five other ______, and the amazing thing is, because we were all lying paralyzed in a spinal ward, we didn't know what each other looked like. How amazing is that? How often in life do you get to make ___________, judgment-free, purely based on ______? And there were no superficial _____________ as we shared our innermost thoughts, our _____, and our hopes for life after the spinal ward.
Solution
- tight
- people
- grasp
- spirit
- protect
- stockings
- friendships
- fears
- conversations
Original Text
(Gasps)
I tried to grasp what she was saying. I was an athlete. That's all I knew. That's all I'd done. If I couldn't do that, then what could I do? And the question I asked myself is: If I couldn't do that, then who was I?
They moved me from intensive care to acute spinal. I was lying on a thin, hard spinal bed. I had no movement in my legs. I had tight stockings on to protect from blood clots. I had one arm in plaster, one arm tied down by drips. I had a neck brace and sandbags on either side of my head and I saw my world through a mirror that was suspended above my head. I shared the ward with five other people, and the amazing thing is, because we were all lying paralyzed in a spinal ward, we didn't know what each other looked like. How amazing is that? How often in life do you get to make friendships, judgment-free, purely based on spirit? And there were no superficial conversations as we shared our innermost thoughts, our fears, and our hopes for life after the spinal ward.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| spinal ward |
4 |
| plaster body |
3 |
| bike ride |
2 |
| internal injuries |
2 |
| spinal cord |
2 |
| lying paralyzed |
2 |
| fly upside |
2 |
Important Words
- acute
- amazing
- arm
- asked
- athlete
- based
- bed
- blood
- brace
- care
- clots
- conversations
- drips
- fears
- friendships
- gasps
- grasp
- hard
- head
- hopes
- innermost
- intensive
- knew
- legs
- life
- looked
- lying
- mirror
- moved
- movement
- neck
- paralyzed
- people
- plaster
- protect
- purely
- question
- sandbags
- shared
- side
- spinal
- spirit
- stockings
- superficial
- suspended
- thin
- thoughts
- tied
- tight
- ward
- world