Unbreakable: Sam Primeaux’s Journey After Paralysis

Sam Primeaux shares how a life-changing motorcycle accident left him paralyzed at 17 — and how he's faced every day since with grit, faith, and determination. From intensive therapy to strength training and stem cell treatments, Sam opens up about reclaiming independence and redefining possibility.

Transcript

Mary Baudoin (00:00):

Thank you everyone for joining us today for this episode of This Ability Podcast. I'm your host, Mary Baudoin, and joining us today is Sam Primeaux. Is that how you pronounce it?

Sam Primeaux (00:18):

Yep.

Mary Baudoin (00:18):

Oh, yes.

Sam Primeaux (00:19):

You got it on the first rift, you got it right.

Mary Baudoin (00:20):

Sam, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Sam Primeaux (00:23):

I'm Sam Primeaux. I'm born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. I run InnerAnimal Clothing brand as well as just began a nonprofit organization called Mobility, which is going to be aiming to help assist people in the spinal cord injury community with rehabilitating, regardless if that's providing physical therapy or equipment, whatever that need is, we're hoping to help bridge that gap and just offer people more options, more access, and more life. From InnerAnimal I've learned a lot about just inspiration and how important it can be and how it's made me a lot more aware of who I am as a person and how to be a good person. Yeah, I'm looking forward to talking to Mary and to sharing some of my journey with y'all.

Mary Baudoin (01:10):

I'd like to ask you, before your accident, what were some of your goals for life?

Sam Primeaux (01:17):

I was actually... Weeks before my accident, I just graduated. I finished high school through a program called Parkview Homeschooling because I was a knucklehead I getting into fights, I skipped in school. I eventually got expelled from my high school, did homeschooling, and my plan was I was looking to move to Florida, become a motorcycle mechanic. At this time I was kind of living couch to couch with some friends that were all kind of into the motorcycle scene. It kind of took me by storm. It's like I love the adrenalin that comes with motorcycles and to work on things and I'm kind of mechanically inclined so that was something I said, "You know what? That's probably my calling. I'm going to go to Florida, I think Miami and become a mechanic." But life had a different plan for that.

Mary Baudoin (02:02):

Yeah. Can you take us back to the day of the accident? What happened?

Sam Primeaux (02:10):

The day of, I was just getting off work. Me and my friend Brant, we were laying the floor at the time. I was going to go home because I wasn't living at home, but I was going back to meet my mom and them for dinner. And so I was coming home and it was evening time, so kind of dusk or whatever. I was coming home. I hit a patch of rain. And this was out in Milton, like country road, real rural area. I hit a patch of rain, no biggie. I was not even a few minutes from home, so I was driving... It's a two lane country road. This truck came in the opposite lane. And so whenever he turned off in front of me, I slid about 20 feet. I hit the side of the truck like the bed of the truck, flipped over, and whenever I landed the impact shattered two of my vertebrae, punctured my spinal cord, which caused paralysis from up the chest level down. And that was the main of the injuries. I also broke my pelvis, my arm, road rash, all that fun stuff.

Mary Baudoin (03:08):

Were you wearing a helmet?

Sam Primeaux (03:09):

Yes, thank God. The helmet... I landed with so much... I impacted with so much force. The helmet actually shattered, the bottom part of the helmet. That's how hard I hit the ground.

Mary Baudoin (03:19):

Wow.

Sam Primeaux (03:19):

So thank God-

Mary Baudoin (03:20):

Thank God.

Sam Primeaux (03:20):

... I was wearing that helmet.

Mary Baudoin (03:22):

Yeah. What were your initial thoughts and your emotions when you learned about your paralysis?

Sam Primeaux (03:28):

At first it was obviously shock. It was a lot of denial at first. Still is in some ways. I was just becoming a man and starting to enter this chapter of my life, and that instantly got uprooted. It uprooted me from my plans. I was guess kind of hateful against the world. I was upset. I was like, why me? That was my first initial reaction. Oh man, it took probably the first few months was just a lot of that just sulking, but it was also a lot of months in the hospital. I mean, from the initial surgery until I went out to Houston, I was in the hospital for about two and a half months. Then I finally got back home and my plan was to become a hermit and just isolate myself from the world because I didn't like who I was. I didn't like what I saw, me in the wheelchair. I just didn't like that image of me.

(04:25):

Thank God I had a group of friends that just wouldn't let that happen. People would always come over and hang out, keep my spirits up. And one of them, he had just began his fitness journey, so he encouraged me to join the gym. He was like, "Man, look, it's obviously a lot harder for you to live and do anything throughout the day working with only your upper half. Why don't we get you in the gym and we could start working out?" And I was very reluctant at this at first because I was, like I said, I didn't like my image. I was very self-conscious, just had a lot of issues that I hadn't worked out with. How do I do the bathroom? How do I get in and out of my wheelchair, in and out the cars and the machines?

(05:04):

But eventually I went with them and at first I didn't like it. Like I said, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was weak. I was scrawny. I didn't know anything. But thankfully I had a couple friends that they were getting into it. They were really good at encouraging me and we were able to challenge each other and kind of feed off each other's motivation. And that bridge right there is what kind of opened up this whole new chapter of my life. The gym opened the world up for me I guess. It taught me a lot about myself, and it also gave me the ability to start inspiring and impacting others because from when I started in the gym, the first few months, it's like I would go very religiously four or five times a week. And then it became almost like an addiction.

(05:49):

I began working at the Planet Fitness. I mean, I'm going from therapy in the morning to school to the gym, and then I'll work out. I'm not leaving the gym until 10, 11 at night some days. And so people just, they were thrown back. They're like, "What are you doing?" I'm like... Well, I thought at the time I was like, "I'm going to get strong enough to figure out how to get out of this wheelchair." At the time, my lower half wouldn't do anything. It would have spasms, a lot of nerve pain, but nothing controllable. What I would do is I would do my normal workouts like upper body, and at the end I would always go to a leg machine and I'd get on the leg extension machine where you kick out your leg, and I would just sit there and try and my legs would just dangle. And it's like, well-

Mary Baudoin (06:29):

In your head you're trying, you're thinking-

Sam Primeaux (06:31):

Exactly. I-

Mary Baudoin (06:32):

... I can think my way through this.

Sam Primeaux (06:37):

Oh yes, I would get on machine and freaking hurt. I've got a freaking blood vessel about to pop out of my head trying hard. But that's what happened. It's like, okay, well, from there I'd just get off and go talk to the friends and go home. But from doing that, people started to come up to me. They're like, "Man, what's going on?" I would tell them, "I got in a wreck. I'm trying to recover." And they're like, "Bro, this is freaking awesome." And so I'm doing this work with Momentum, and then physical therapy gets cut. This is maybe nine months or so after the wreck, I guess. Initially in physical therapy with these injuries, they teach you how to be self-sufficient. How do I live life in the chair? How do I get in and around the house, whatever. And that's great. But after that, they were like, "All right, well, you're good to go." And I'm like, "I'm nowhere near figuring out... I can't even stand."

Mary Baudoin (07:18):

Insurance has probably stopped paying at some point.

Sam Primeaux (07:18):

Exactly. That's what it was. Once insurance, I guess finds the reason to stop covering there, they're able to. And so it broke my heart. That was definitely one of the hardest moments I think.

Mary Baudoin (07:33):

Were there moments you felt giving up?

Sam Primeaux (07:36):

That was one of them. And at the time of my accident, I wasn't in a great headspace, kind of bipolar, and that was just dealing with some life issues. And so it was like I thought... And at that time, I didn't have anything to live for necessarily is what I felt like. That's why I was so reckless on the motorcycle. That's why I think the wreck was a blessing, because if the wreck would've happened any other way, I wouldn't be here telling you this story. My mindset at that time was very just careless. I was young and reckless, and I was going through a bad breakup at the time. Then the wreck happened, that just compounded all this bad stuff I felt. Whenever I got that phone call, months after the wreck of physical therapy getting canceled, I was broken.

(08:20):

I was like, "There is absolutely no point of me doing this. Why would I want to live out the rest of my life dealing with all this stuff, all the pain, all the doctor's appointments, all this stuff." And thankfully at this point, I'd already met a friend, Nathan, at the gym. He's paralyzed. He walks with crutches. That showed me one that okay, paralyzed I could still walk. And he's huge. He's a bodybuilder. I was like, "Okay, he's obviously strong enough to live his life and sounded like he had a great life." I was like, "Okay, if I could at least learn, how do I live, Nate?" Coincidentally, when I got the phone call, my girlfriend at the time and I were at the Super 1 locally just shopping for groceries, got the call, I'm heartbroken. Me and her are fighting because I'm just upset, taking it out on her.

(09:02):

And she was like, "Well, you can wait in the car. I'm going handle the groceries." I was like, "You know what? I'm leaving." And I rolled down the neighborhood and went to Nathan's house and I'm crying. I'm screaming to God, if there's a God, why am I going through this? Why would you choose me if you're a God, show yourself, I guess is what I was wanting him to reveal himself. And he kind of did with Nathan because I knocked on the door and I was ready, I was ready to put a bullet through my head. I was just like, "I'm done with this. There's no hope. Look, they're giving up on me." And he was like, "Look, bro." He said, "Whenever someone says you can't, that's setting their limits, not yours. Until then you have no limits." And I was like, "Well, how can I show them?"

(09:43):

I was like, "You know what? You're right. Maybe in the statistics, people from with these injuries don't recover, but they're not willing to put in the same work ethic that I am. They're not willing to try the things that I am." And so I left this house that day with a completely new mindset of I have something to go against. I'm just going to prove them wrong. And what it started to do was I opened... Obviously I tried more, but I failed more, but it opened more doors of possibility. My question is, it's like, "Okay, if I can't do this, if I can't overcome this obstacle, how do I do this? How can I try this one?" And so eventually that put me in a conversation in the gym. I was talking to a guy and he brought up stem cells. He said, "Man, you should look up this stuff, stem cells." This is like 2019, I think. This is fairly new. Not many people are talking about stem cells, and there wasn't much online, especially about paralysis or spinal cord injuries. They're like, "Good luck. This stuff's a hoax, whatever."

Mary Baudoin (10:41):

It could be very experimental as-

Sam Primeaux (10:42):

Very. And it's like you're going to go overseas and do all these weird procedures. And so the whole thing just seemed kind of sketchy to me. I was super interested, but I wasn't sure I wanted it. And I just jumped down that rabbit hole and I found somebody who had went to a place, the place I got my stem cells from. He was a quadriplegic. He'd gone there. He said the experience was good, and he was seeing a little bit of progress. Nothing crazy, but it was enough to give me hope. I was like, "Bro, if Walt can see some recover from this, I got to try it." The next problem was, man, $10,000. Where do I get this money? At the time I'm making disability check at $700 a month, how I'm going to pay for $10,000 working-

Mary Baudoin (11:22):

That's a whole lot of years of saving.

Sam Primeaux (11:23):

... What I'm working at Planet Fitness, making $8 an hour. I'm like, "I'm never going to save about 10 grand." And so what did I do? Well, how can I do this? Okay. I started talking to my friends. We started fundraising. They're like, "Look, bro, let's raise some money." We did everything from sitting on the side of the street with the sign from... We've had pop-up TV shops.

Mary Baudoin (11:41):

Help him.

Sam Primeaux (11:43):

Help my friend Sam get on his feet again, and they're like, "Who's Sam?" He's the guy in the wheelchair and they're like, "Oh, here's 10 bucks." We fundraised that way. We've had cookouts, car shows, all the works, and that allowed me to that $10,000. I went out to Minnesota. The first round was just, it wasn't anything crazy. It was cool because what they did, it was I went to Minnesota, they extracted my blood, took some bone marrow, they fuse it, did what they had to do. Think a day or two later is whenever they reinjected it. The whole time, I'm super excited. I'm working out at this little gym they got out there in Minnesota. Me and my dad are adventuring because I've never been that far north. And so it was just a really cool experience. I came back home and I wasn't sure what to expect.

Mary Baudoin (12:31):

When they did the injection, there were stem cells in it?

Sam Primeaux (12:34):

Yes. What the injection is they extract your bone marrow, they extract the stem cells, I believe, from the bone marrow. They fuse that with the white blood cells in your blood platelets. And what they do is they'll send in some shots, something to inflame the area, because our body's way of healing itself is through inflammation. They inflame the area of my injury, which is my spinal cord. They inflame that area. They sent this new concoction that they just made with my blood platelets and the stem cells, send it to the area because the thought process is we're going to flame the area and then boom, with the stem cells, we're going to help the body convert the bad inflammation to good inflammation. Whatever's still broken in theory or we want to try to give it the best environment to heal that it can.

(13:20):

And so while it's doing that, my job is to eat right, try to stay moving in the gym, try to do all these things to give my body, like I said, the best resources and going to the gym and getting on the leg machines and just trying. That was just the effort of trying to send the signal from my brain to the body part because we have to fix the wire and send off the current. And so I'm like, "Okay, where's the current go?"

Mary Baudoin (13:45):

Well, thank you for explaining the stem cell process-

Sam Primeaux (13:47):

No problem.

Mary Baudoin (13:48):

... Because you're the first guest I've had that has had stem cell injection, so I wasn't sure how the process works.

Sam Primeaux (13:55):

Yeah, there's a few different processes. Some of them, like the embryonic ones mix the stem cell concoction or whatever, and then it goes into you. Some I've seen do IV treatments, but mine were all directly near my injury because the thought... We're going to get it all inflamed and then basically soaked the area with all these new stem cells. My body's like, "Okay, man, everything's broken." And this is how I think of it molecularly, my body's just broken down. There's a neighborhood of panic and the stem cells are just in there throwing up new walls, calming out fire. What happened was I came home, I got right back into the gym, which wasn't anything crazy at the time.

Mary Baudoin (14:34):

Did you notice any difference?

Sam Primeaux (14:35):

Not initially, no. I think it was more of the hope that kind of initially started driving it. Like I said, I'd go to the gym and man, just try to wiggle my legs. And all my friends that had helped me donate everything, they're hooting and hollering. And what had happened was, I think about six months or so after the first round is whenever I got on that machine and it finally kicked out. And so I got a friend around me. They're like, "Wait a minute." And so first I could only kick and it would touch the pad of the machine and it would stop. I didn't have enough strength to move it, but my body was starting to, it would quiver whenever I would try to kick it, and then eventually I could move 5 pounds, I can move 10 pounds and so on and so forth.

(15:12):

This had my head through the roof. I was in the gym hustling twice as hard, and I was just surrounding myself with more and more of these people in the fitness community. And so they're like, "Dude, it is working." I'm like, "I guess it's working." We fundraised, got another round. The next round, this was maybe a year or so after the first treatment, we got the next one. Same thing. I go out there, same treatment, but this time my friend Madeline brought me. Huge shout out. That was a really cool adventure. We got to go to the Mall of America and just go explore some. That was cool. We did the process, came back home, and what I noticed on the ride home, it's like I had a little wet spot on my pants on my butt cheek. I'm like, "Hey, what's going on with this?" I find a little blister. And so I'm like, "Oh man, what's going on with this? Maybe if I'm sitting too long." I'm putting band-aids and stuff on trying to keep up with it.

(16:02):

This spirals over the next year, for the blister, it ended up being a golf ball sized chunk of meat out of my glute is what... I'd gotten, it's called a pressure ulcer, pressure sore. It's basically your body's way of rotting from the inside out in a place because of lack of blood flow. If you sitting somewhere for a long period of time and your butt gets tingly and you have to move around, that's your body saying, "Hey, look, we need some blood flow. You got to move around."

Mary Baudoin (16:33):

Right. That's what some people have, like a bed sores.

Sam Primeaux (16:36):

Exactly. It's like a bed sore.

Mary Baudoin (16:36):

Okay,

Sam Primeaux (16:36):

From sitting.

Mary Baudoin (16:39):

Your skin just decomposes.

Sam Primeaux (16:41):

Exactly. It rots from the inside out, basically from lack of blood flow or whatever.

Mary Baudoin (16:45):

Right. Did that start to make you panic a little bit?

Sam Primeaux (16:48):

A little bit? No, no. A lot. I mean, I was up... This was panic mode because while that's brewing, I'm still going to the gym. I'm trying to kick my legs, I'm doing whatever, and they're starting to... Now, the spasms and stuff are crazy at this point, just intensity wise, and I didn't have really much any control. It's just like, "Ah, what's going on? My legs are going crazy." And so with the spasms, I would still go to the gym and I'm still progressively getting stronger while this hole in my leg is slowly getting bigger and bigger and the spasms are getting worse. And it got to a point where I would get woken up at midnight, one o'clock at night. The first time it happened, I got woken up on the floor, my legs kicked me out of bed. They jumped around so violently, I fell out bed, and I'm mad at this point, I'm wide awake.

(17:41):

And so I had a friend that I knew worked out really early. I called him up and he answered. I was like, "Dude, are you going to the gym?" He's like, "Man, I just woke up. Yeah, I'm about to go." I was like, "All right, I'm going to come meet you." I went to the gym with him, and so started training on that routine. I'm talking two in the morning we're at the gym grinding, and as I'm still slowly progressing in my strength, this hole is getting worse and worse. I started getting sick all the time, sweats. Ended up going to the hospital. They're like, "whoa, this is no bueno." We try to do all these different procedures and stuff to heal the wound. Between wound treatments like wound vacs, the bandages, whatever, nursing coming to my house. None of it worked. Ended up with IV antibiotics in my arm, and they were like, "You got to stay in bed with this med vac back on."

(18:35):

That would last until my legs would wake me up at night, and I would kick myself out of bed and go to the gym, and I got videos of me doing pull-ups with IV lines hanging out my arm. I'd come home in the morning, my dad would do the IVs before going to work, and we'd start our day. But it got so bad I had to get on bed rest for a month or two worth of bed rest, and that mentally destroyed me because I had just started my brand. I'm just fundraising all this money seeing the stem cells. I'm like, "These people just helped me get all this money." And it's like, is it going? I thought it was going waste. I was like, "The stem cells can't do what they have to, if I can't be in the gym trying all this, whatever, whatever." If my body's not healthy enough to heal itself, there's no way I could be progressing.

Mary Baudoin (19:21):

That mentally took a toll on you.

Sam Primeaux (19:22):

Right.

Mary Baudoin (19:23):

The antibiotics probably were helping you, right?

Sam Primeaux (19:30):

Right. Well, I mean, yeah, I'm sure.

Mary Baudoin (19:30):

Basically-

Sam Primeaux (19:31):

Yeah, on the what you call it-

Mary Baudoin (19:31):

... You're kind of on the mend.

Sam Primeaux (19:31):

Well, yeah, the antibiotics were for the, I had a bone infection from the sores and such. Yeah, everything I guess was just over time compounding until like, dude, this is going to be worse. I thought it was going to go to waste, but actually it did the opposite. Because of me this new intensity, going to the gym early, I meet a physical therapist. He's like, "Dude, this is awesome. If you want, I'd love to help train you." And I said, "Dude, Scott, insurance dropped this years ago." And he is like, "Dude, if you want to work, I'll help you. Come on my lunch break. We'll try to do what we can." He's not even a neurological physical therapist. He's an orthopedic, I guess. More minor injuries I guess he works with typically.

(20:11):

But he was like, "Man, I'm no expert, but I'll help you." And so we would go and he had set up his walker and kind of help me try to stand to start learning how to stand. But while I had this big old hole in my leg, my right leg would not lock out. It was so hard for me to try to step or stand on my right leg because I had the sore. Had the surgery, I did the month and a half hospital rehabilitation sitting on bed, and finally... And this whole time I'm panicking. I'm like, "Dude, I was just figuring out how to stand and turn my legs on." I'm going to forget all this is what I thought because I'm out of it so long. I got back to therapy. Night and day difference. I'm able to stand on it a little bit more. Me and Scott are like, "What? You can stand."

(20:56):

And so we try to start stepping, and at first I maybe make 5 or 10 feet, and that's with Scott kind of holding the walker, making sure my legs don't buckle. And anyway, we just kind of kept trucking at that. And so I was like, okay, now I'm healthy again. I'm seeing this progress. Let's get another round. I started fundraising, and this time I'm making a lot of noise now. I got Dustin Poirier and the Good Fight Foundation to sponsor me. Shout out to Dustin and Tim, they're awesome. They were able to help me get on my third round of stem cells.

Mary Baudoin (21:28):

Good.

Sam Primeaux (21:30):

Which I've noticed a big difference. And I think it's because of the momentum of what I was doing has already been building with therapy and working out and whatever. This last round, I've improved a lot more of the internal stuff, like the feeling of when my muscles contracted or not while I'm standing, because at first I was walking or able to stand without feeling, this is all just tingling this. Now I'm able to walk and know that, okay, left leg is locked out, right leg, we've got to progress that. Boom. We've got to lock out the right leg without having to only rely on what I'm seeing, which is a huge, huge help.

(22:07):

I've also been able to experience improvements with my bladder and bowels, which is the worst part of a spinal cord injury is that the problems that come with the restroom and just everything that come with it. But now I'm able to start knowing whenever I have to use the restroom prior. Your body's saying, "Hey, look, you got to go pee." Before it was like I would look down and like, "Oh dude, there's pee. What the heck? This is not cool." But now it's like my body's like, "Look, bro, you got a couple minutes. Let's get to it." That in itself is huge.

Mary Baudoin (22:39):

That's awesome. That is awesome.

Sam Primeaux (22:45):

And so I'm hopeful to just keep building on that on the progress we've already made so far.

Mary Baudoin (22:50):

Right. I did want to ask you, because you have a huge following on social media, and I'm sure it's going to continue to grow. I think you're a wonderful influence-

Sam Primeaux (23:01):

Thank you.

Mary Baudoin (23:01):

... To people, especially other people that have probably just had an injury they might be learning right now that they have paralysis. Has anyone reached out to you that says, "Your journey is an inspiration to me?" And if so, does anybody stand out to you that is looking to you as a mentor?

Sam Primeaux (23:25):

A lot of people have, and I've had some touching messages. It's just like, wow, I didn't... When I started all this, I started making the videos solely to show that someone in a wheelchair for workout and how, because like I said, in 2018, 2019, when I first started getting in the gym or whatever, by the time I built up enough confidence to even put myself on my camera, I was like, "Man, there's not a ton of resources." The only reason I was learning how to work out was my buddy Nathan's paralyzed, so he was very smart and able to do things. He would teach me a form and how to exercise properly and nutrition. And so I'm like, "Dude, I'm going to make videos. I'm going to show y'all how to do it." And that's what spiraled into this.

(24:03):

I'm like... When I get these messages, I'm like, "Whoa, I was just posting a video of me learning to work out." And this shows somebody that man, maybe I'm able to push past my obstacles. Maybe I'm able to do this or that. It's like, "Wow, okay, what can I do with that? What's the inspiration?" And that's what InnerAnimal is for, is I think we all have an inner animal. We all have an ability, a primitive ability to overcome and adapt to whatever it is our environment puts us through. This is just going back to prehistoric time, we've always had to evolve in a way that our environment requires. My new environment required me to have less body function, more problems. What did I do? I got strong enough to kind of compensate it, and now it's like, whoa, crap. That helps. That gives other people strength.

(24:53):

And so one locally, Don Michael, huge shout out to Don. He reached out and he's impacted... He has a different type of ailment with Friedreich Ataxia, so it's not quite the same, but he's like, "Man, I see you working to get out of your wheelchair. I'm going to do the same." And stuff like that. It just drives me because it's like, wow, on days when I feel like I can't, or I'm unable to get whatever the task is at hand that day, it's like, brother, what would Don do? Don would show up and fight. He would keep going. And so it's cool to have that impact on people now that I know what it's impacted me. And honestly, that's why I do it. Like I said, I started the t-shirt merchandise sales because I was like, "Oh, I'm going to fundraise and make money to do this." Brother, selling t-shirts not a get rich quicksand, I promise. I was like, "What in the..." What I learned what gross profit versus net profit was, I was like, "This is ridiculous."

Mary Baudoin (25:58):

You're learning. I've kind of found financial things as well.

Sam Primeaux (26:01):

Oh, so much.

Mary Baudoin (26:01):

Well, let's talk about that for a minute. What are your social media sites? What are your websites? Tell people how they could find out more information about you.

Sam Primeaux (26:13):

I'm Sam Primeaux. If you'll look up on Facebook, that's my personal page. InnerAnimal is the Instagram, I'm sorry, the Instagram is InnerAnimalExperience and 1rippercrip is my personal Instagram. And then TikTok is InnerAnimal. If you Google just InnerAnimals you'll find this. And yeah, like I said, it's apparel brand right now, but I basically want to grow it to something to scale of Nike, but it takes a very long to learn how to build all this. I'm enjoying that process and with Mobility, I hope to leverage what I'm learning through sharing my story through fundraising to help my recovery to do that to others. I have friends that maybe they're not able to voice their problems the way that I can, so I want to be able to use that to their advantage.

(27:04):

I've gotten stem cells, I've gotten grants to go train. I've gotten flown out to train. I've gotten wheelchairs. I've just gotten so many blessings over the years simply by me just showing up and working, which I see these people doing and putting the videos out. I'm like, "Look, if they can't handle the videos or if they can't handle the therapy or they in the wheelchair, I want to be able to bridge that gap like people have done for me." And so I feel like it's going to be my impact because merchandise and clothes, honestly, I'm not a fashion-nova or whatever, so I don't care about t-shirts, but helping somebody, seeing somebody in a new wheelchair, whatever it is, knowing what that's done to me, it feels good. It's going to feel great being able to give that. I'm super excited to enter that journey. Mobility is our Instagram, and I'm going to be doing the website and stuff on that later.

Mary Baudoin (27:57):

Okay, great. Yeah, send-

Sam Primeaux (27:59):

Building the website-

Mary Baudoin (27:59):

... Us that because we'll be posting it on our page for sure.

Sam Primeaux (28:01):

Thank you.

Mary Baudoin (28:02):

Looking towards the future, what are your next steps in your recovery journey?

Sam Primeaux (28:09):

In my recovery journey, I think I would like to do another run of stem cells, like another stem cell treatment. I'll be planning kind of loosely how to start fundraising and mapping out my plan with that as well as I would like to go back to BARWIS at some point, go get some more training, which is a facility in Colorado that specializes in neurological as well as athletic training. And from there, I don't know. At home I've been training at Reds, so I'm back on my early morning routine, but I also want to start incorporating more pool therapy, more aqua therapy. Now that I have more mind-muscle connection, I want to start testing those limits on I guess endurance. With the pool, the theory is you weigh less than water, so should be able to get more work, more output. Super excited to see with that.

Mary Baudoin (29:03):

That's great.

Sam Primeaux (29:05):

I compete in bodybuilding, but this year I really want to put my focus to marathons. I competed my last marathon a few weeks ago. I only was able to walk a quarter of a mile, but my goal is like I'm-

Mary Baudoin (29:17):

No, that's incredible.

Sam Primeaux (29:20):

Well, I know I was aiming at that mile, but whenever it came down to it's like, okay, cool. Quarter mile is my first landmark, so that's my new thing to chase now. I still want to compete bodybuilding, but I'm driven to start-

Mary Baudoin (29:34):

That's awesome.

Sam Primeaux (29:35):

... To at least complete my mile.

Mary Baudoin (29:36):

Yeah, you'll get there soon.

Sam Primeaux (29:39):

And I just got a really awesome piece of equipment that helped me with that, actually an exoskeleton to help assist with the walking. Now that I'm learning my gait pattern, like, okay, this is what steps are. You have to learn the muscle commands, and it's like you have to learn it in a way that your body doesn't forget. The amount of reps that that takes is a crazy amount, but I'm super excited and grateful to be able to keep putting in those reps.

Mary Baudoin (30:03):

Definitely. We only have a few minutes left and I want to ask you, I see that you have some tattoos. Can you briefly, within a minute or two explain what they are and why they're important to you?

Sam Primeaux (30:16):

This one is a heartbeat with a motorcycle that says, "Trust your struggle." That was my first one I got when I was 18. That was whenever I was still really in my head right after the wreck. This is my second one, my gorilla.

Mary Baudoin (30:32):

Your inner animal?

Sam Primeaux (30:33):

That's my inner animal. That's where the InnerAnimals came from. It is my gorilla. I've always been my mom's monkey. And so I was like, "If I'm going to be a monkey, I want to be the baddest monkey in the jungle."

Mary Baudoin (30:41):

Well, yeah, that looks like it.

Sam Primeaux (30:43):

And actually I learned that my spirit animal being a gorilla means that I am a leader by demonstration not by force like gorillas are extremely strong, but they don't have to taunt their strength for you to know they're strong. And whenever I started to piece that together, it's like, wow, that speaks to me. And this one is a memorial for my uncle Steve. It's a skull-

Mary Baudoin (31:12):

Isn't that nice?

Sam Primeaux (31:12):

... And then that it's like, it's undone, but this is an astronaut, like blowing up, this the rocket ship, an alien. It's all kind of undone. But tattoos are expensive, so anybody wants to give me some tattoos. But no, that's the last of my worries.

Mary Baudoin (31:26):

Yeah, yeah, definitely. What message would you like to leave with our listeners today?

Sam Primeaux (31:33):

I think in life, one thing that we cannot avoid is change. We get choices and we get chances to take those... I'm sorry. We get choices... We make choices and we take chances to control that change. And so I encourage anybody listening today to really evaluate what you're doing and understand that, okay, this is my dream. This is what I truly want to do. This is what makes me passionate. I encourage you to drill into that, to focus on that. And you're going to fail. You're going to find problem after problem. You're going to find reasons to quit, but you just have to have that one dream, that one change that you're going for big enough to say, "Look, I don't care how many times I'm going to fall on my face, I'll get right back up." With my recovery that's what has allowed me to understand that in life because life is what you make it. Understanding that your perspective on life is extremely huge too so always remember that.

Mary Baudoin (32:39):

Yeah, definitely. One group of people we didn't talk about is your family, too much. You mentioned your dad. How were your parents reacting to your paralysis and how did it affect them and are they a big support system for you?

Sam Primeaux (32:58):

Initially, wow, it kind of wrecked my family in a sense. Well, it brought us closer together because at the time, me and my dad were, I was young and arrogant, so me and my dad were fighting a lot, so I was kind of distancing myself from him. My mom, she's my mom so she tried to pull me in and when it happened and she saw how distraught I was and how suicidal I became, she became frantic and it really affected her. She was scared and she called all kind of hospitals and places looking for how do I get my son? How do we help him? And when they heard my diagnosis, they're like, "Oh-"

Mary Baudoin (33:35):

You're on your own-

Sam Primeaux (33:37):

... Yeah, good luck. Which was super disheartening, which is another driving force for Mobility because I want to be able to help those moms that are facing... Because that's another thing that I get a message a lot, my son or my this just gotten in accidents, how can I... I just try to guide them from what I know here. This is what you'll need, maybe look into these things. It's important to have a solid wheelchair and a solid this and a solid that. Being able to be in that position is really awesome.

(34:08):

Now I still living with them. They're super supportive and I think they're obviously proud and almost shocked at times with my walking and stuff where I show my grandma video-

Mary Baudoin (34:22):

Nice.

Sam Primeaux (34:22):

... She's like, "Wow, that's you?" I said, "Yeah, I told you I was going to do it. I'm doing it."

Mary Baudoin (34:26):

That's awesome.

Sam Primeaux (34:27):

Stuff like, that's cool. My family's been a huge support system. My grandfather was a really huge help, especially whenever I first got injured and such. The first years I wasn't driving, I didn't drive until probably two or three years after my injury I started driving. He would drive me from school and he lives like 30 something minutes away. He would drive to my house, pick me up, go to school, go to the gym, get a haircut, whatever I needed, he usually is there so shout out to Pop.

Mary Baudoin (35:00):

Nice. Do you consider yourself to be a spiritual person?

Sam Primeaux (35:04):

Yes. This journey has kind of allowed me to grow in my spirituality. I began this, not as an atheist or anything, I believed in God, but I didn't understand much about it. And then when the accident happened, I was like, "Oh, there ain't no God if He let this happen." But now that I'm growing and going through the things that I am, I understand, okay, there is, I think there's a God and there's a purpose on my life. And I think that wreck, that wreck saved me because if it would've wreck on my accordance, I would've been running a red light running from a cop, hit a car, and I'd probably be dead on the path I was on.

Mary Baudoin (35:45):

Yeah, you said, and I quote, "The wreck was a blessing."

Sam Primeaux (35:48):

Oh, yes. It was a huge blessing and at first I hated it, everything about it, the wheelchair, the problems. But the wheelchair, whenever I learned the wheelchair is a tool, I can't hate the wheelchair, the wheelchair's getting me out the house. When I figured that out, I was like, "Whoa, okay. Yeah, you're right." Because on those days, whenever someone told me that, I was like, "Whatever." When I got back on bed rest, it was a nice slap to the face to say, "Look, do you want to sit in bed for a couple months?" Nope, I'm good. I love this wheelchair and just being able to get out and enjoy life, make life livable. Yeah, it's a huge blessing.

Mary Baudoin (36:29):

All right, Sam, well I think that's going to wrap up our interview. Do you have any last thoughts or anything that you'd like to say before we close out?

Sam Primeaux (36:37):

Regardless what you're facing, you're facing it for a reason, just keep grinding and soon you'll be shining.

Mary Baudoin (36:42):

That's it. All right, Sam, thank you so much for being here today. That's going to wrap up this episode of This Ability Podcast. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next time.

Sam Primeaux (36:51):

Awesome.