Introduction
It is easy to say that there are no hopeless situations, that the most important thing is not to give up, and that people should believe that the best days are ahead. However, when trouble happens in real life, very few people find the courage to keep on fighting for their dreams. Mark Zupan is a vivid example of such an exceptional person. The book GIMP: When life deals you a crappy hand, you can fold – or you can play tells the story of Mark Zupan, a promising soccer player, and Chris Igoe, the best friend of Mark, whose life made a 180-degree change after a car accident. In the present essay, the author focuses on each main character’s path to recovery, analyzes various barriers to their recovery process, and proposes how this book helps deal with specific health care situations.
Summary of Mark Zupans and Chris Igoes Stories and Paths to Recovery
It was another party where Mark and his teammates got drunk. It was the party that changed the lives of Mark Zupan and Chris Igoe, who were only 18 years old. At the height of the fun, Mark decided to take a nap in the bed of Chris’s truck and did not tell anyone about this. A few hours later, he woke up in a canal with hypothermia, pneumonia, and a broken neck. After going through a long and arduous path of rehabilitation, Mark can “stand for short periods to pull on some pants, reach a dish out of the cupboard, or put gas” in his car (Zupan & Swanson, 2006, p. 2). He can even “take a few slow steps” if there is an extreme need, but the world of soccer has become inaccessible to him (Zupan & Swanson, 2006, p. 2). However, as a proverb says, as one door closes, another must open.
Years after that fateful day, Mark believes that his quadriplegia provided him with numerous opportunities and was a challenge that made him know himself and his friends better. However, before that, Mark came through the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, finally, acceptance. According to Ko (2019), these emotions are typical of people learning to live in a new reality where their physical abilities are drastically limited. Nonetheless, it is necessary to note that Mark has never attempted suicide and has always thought that it is not the right choice. In fact, at the early stages of his rehabilitation, there was a case when he drank acne medicine (Zupan & Swanson, 2006). Still, it happened only once, and this situation could be treated as a cry for help. Mark also refused to attend group therapies in the rehab facility despite being depressed. What helped Mark start a new life in the wheelchair was a game of wheelchair rugby, also known as murderball.
Mark’s close friend Christopher Igoe, who was driving the car under the influence, did not suffer serious physical injuries. Nonetheless, his recovery process was also long and complicated. It was great luck that their parents of Mark decided not to press any charges against him. Otherwise, he would end up in jail, and this experience might have broken him. Still, this does not mean that Mark’s parents did not think that Chris was not responsible for their son’s injury.
For a long time, Chris blamed himself for destroying his life of Mark. The constant self-castigation forced him to abuse alcohol. One day, Chris even drank so much that he got poisoned and ended up in the hospital. Still, Chris was fortunate to have loving, supportive, and understanding parents and sisters who put him on the right path and paid his bills for the drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. More importantly, it was Chris who called the facility and asked for help.
Comparison of Mark Zupans and Chris Igoes Paths to Recovery
Mark’s and Chris’s paths to recovery from the accident have several common features. Both of them were feeling guilty for what had happened. Mark, for example, kept on thinking of every detail of the accident. For a long time, Mark was scolding himself for going to the party, drinking too much, and going to sleep in Chris’s truck (Zupan & Swanson, 2006). He also realized that he ruined his own life and betrayed himself (Zupan & Swanson, 2006). As for Chris, he could forgive himself for what he did to Mark because this situation resulted from his immature and stupid actions.
The difference is that Mark did not become addicted to alcohol, whereas Chris did. According to the study by Braun et al. (2018), drug and alcohol abuse is a common coping strategy used by people with a strong feeling of guilt who tend to blame themselves. Such people misuse alcohol to “deal with guilt or shame” (Braun et al., 2018, p. 432). In other words, alcohol helped Chris escape reality and forget what he has done for a minute. As it was noted by Chris’s therapist, he failed to forgive himself even though his friend had already forgiven him and decided to “move their friendship into the future” (Zupan & Swanson, 2006, p. 142). In other words, this situation presents Chris as a caring person who worries not only for their well-being but also for the health and emotions of the nearest and dearest.
In contrast to Chris, the coping strategy of Mark was an attempt to recover after an accident. More precisely, Mark kept on working out in the sports hall and was striving to become able to walk again. Still, before doing that, he also went through the stage of anger and helplessness (Zupan & Swanson, 2006). At this point, it could be noted that both friends were learning to walk after the accident. Mark was doing it in the literal sense of the word, whereas for Chris walking means living sober and being free from feeling guilty constantly.
When people face challenges, they commonly become religious and start to pray and attend church. Nevertheless, the accident did not make the book’s main characters religious. The religion Mark was a sport, and his god was soccer which was afterward substituted with the murderball. And in the life of Chris, there was no place for god. One might suggest that if Chris had no access to alcohol, he might have become religious to numb the pain, but that had never happened.
Another common feature of Mark’s and Chris’s paths is that they faced public opinion and stigma. For instance, people approached Mark as “a cripple whose life had become a cautionary tale” (Zupan & Swanson, 2006, p. 176). Mark lived under the pressure of his quadriplegia and suffered from the unrequired piety and regrets about his condition. On the contrary, after an accident, Chris lived under the stigma of being a person “who crippled his best friend” (Zupan & Swanson, 2006, p. 142). Other people felt fortunate not to be in Mark’s or Chris’s place. Nonetheless, the problem is that people who accused Chris or felt piety about Mark never wondered how these two men were feeling inside. For society, it does not matter that Chris was a good person who cared about what he did to his friend and strived to atone for his deed. People also seem not to notice that Mark could live a normal life despite his handicap and, thus, emphasize that he is special and feel sorry for him.
It is also necessary to note that Mark and Chris faced various financial circumstances. More precisely, Chris had enough money to buy alcohol and, later, his parents paid for his treatment in the rehabilitation center. The situation of Mark was far more complicated because recovery after an accident is immensely costly. Initially, Mark’s family relied on the insurance company to cover the costs, but eventually, it “refused to pay the stacked coverage” because Mark’s mother could not provide some documents (Zupan & Swanson, 2006, p. 139). The insurance company of Chris Igoe covered a small part of the treatment’s price, but this was not enough. Mark does not clarify how he managed to find $300,000 for the rehabilitation (Zupan & Swanson, 2006). Still, this bundle of money was entirely spent on paying for the past bills not covered by medical insurance (Zupan & Swanson, 2006). This case reveals a bitter truth about the healthcare system: people in difficult life situations cannot receive medical care of high quality because numerous costs are not covered by their medical insurance.
Application of Information Gained
Some concepts in the book GIMP: When life deals you a crappy hand, you can fold – or you can play could be used in similar health care situations. For example, at the beginning of the book, Mark Zupan notes that he hates the word handicap because it creates an impression that he is helpless, cannot cope on his own, and needs some artificial advantages and benefits (Zupan & Swanson, 2006). From this, it could be inferred that a nurse, a doctor, a therapist, or an ordinary person should not use words, phrases, or tone that makes disabled people feel weaker than they are. In fact, after reading a book, it seems that some disabled and quadriplegic people are even stronger than healthy people because the former managed to survive, go through numerous challenges, and not lose hope.
The same logic could be applied to dealing with people who struggle with alcohol or drug abuse. These people are not necessarily bad, spoiled, or dangerous to society. Instead, a feeling of guilt and sorry might slowly kill them from the inside. Hence, it is necessary not to give up on such people, make laugh at them, or despise them. Instead, it is essential to understand them, show that they are not alone, and assist them in coping with the situation.
Conclusion
To conclude, the book of Zupan and Swanson (2006) teaches that people cannot choose whether some challenges will occur in their life or not; however, their attitude to the situations is entirely their choice. It might be hard to keep on moving, but giving up will not solve the problem either. Everyone should remember that what does not kill us eventually makes us stronger. Another critical inference from the book is that one should judge strangers until one knows what they are going through.
References
Braun, B., Weinland, C., Kornhuber, J., & Lenz, B. (2018). Religiosity, guilt, altruism and forgiveness in alcohol dependence: Results of a cross-sectional and prospective cohort study. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 53(4), 426-434. Web.
Ko, H. Y. (2019). Psychological Consideration After Spinal Cord Injury. In H. Y. Ko (Ed.) Management and Rehabilitation of Spinal Cord Injuries (pp. 477-485). Springer.
Zupan, M. & Swanson, T. (2006). GIMP: When life deals you a crappy hand, you can fold – or you can play. HarperCollins.