{"id":23097,"date":"2019-02-28T18:09:59","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T23:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23097"},"modified":"2019-03-07T00:16:59","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T05:16:59","slug":"community-rallies-on-the-rink-to-raise-thousands-for-chris-hodgins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/community-rallies-on-the-rink-to-raise-thousands-for-chris-hodgins\/","title":{"rendered":"Community rallies on the rink to raise thousands for Chris Hodgins"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chris and Cathy Hodgins now find joy in the little things.
\nThis past Valentine\u2019s Day, the 34-year-old Aurora couple were overjoyed when Chris was finally able to move his finger again. It might have just been by the smallest of millimetres, but every sign of progress is an important milestone as they grapple with their \u201cnew normal\u201d after Chris\u2019s devastating Sea-Doo accident this past summer, which left him in a wheelchair with serious spinal cord injuries.
\nBut they found an overwhelming amount of joy in things decidedly larger this Family Day when over 100 people from Aurora and beyond took over the ice at the Aurora Community Centre for Hockey for Hodge, a fundraiser which saw Chris and Cathy\u2019s friends and family rally friends of their own for a friendly tourney which raised over $20,000 for the family to navigate their incredibly challenging new normal.
\n\u201cEveryone is coming out and supporting us; this is the best community of people,\u201d said Chris, watching the action from his wheelchair, just behind the boards of ACC2. \u201cEveryone who is playing, for the most part, is from this community or grew up here and it is just great.\u201d
\nWhile the family has been spearheading a Go Fund Me campaign to help Chris get the resources he needs, they hit on the \u201cHockey for Hodge\u201d idea in December and the response from their networks was overwhelming.
\n\u201cThis was supposed to be a small event and it just blew up,\u201d says Cathy. \u201cThis will help tremendously. There is no insurance, so this is our financial support. Chris needs a lot of equipment to just even get started and without that kind of financial support behind us, it just makes life a lot more difficult for him, for me, and his daily way of life. These injuries are serious enough that he does require more sensitive equipment and this will make a huge difference to us in our day to day.\u201d
\nThe lives of the Hodgins family were changed forever on the Saturday of the Labour Day weekend when Chris\u2019 Sea-Doo fell on top of him and broke his neck and back.
\nHe sustained a number of injuries to his internal organs and chest.
\n\u201cHe lost all his own blood and was breathing on his diaphragm most of the time,\u201d recalls Cathy. \u201cThey say just him making it to surgery \u2013 not only having surgery \u2013 was a miracle in itself. I said to the doctor after, \u2018People who have injuries like my husband, what\u2019s the outcome?\u2019 and he said to me, \u2018I don\u2019t normally get to operate on people like your husband. They are already gone by the time they get here.\u2019 As far as I\u2019m concerned, he\u2019s already a miracle in himself and I am very proud of him. Every day is difficult, but one day at a time, we\u2019re making it.
\n\u201cHe progresses, which is fantastic, but with his progression, it puts him into different wheelchairs. At first, they didn\u2019t even think we would be able to use an arm-controlled wheelchair; they thought he would have to use a sip-and-puff wheelchair where you have to blow into a straw to make it go back and forth. From there, he went to a head-controlled wheelchair and now we\u2019re trying to be positive that he will recover enough to get into a hand-controlled wheelchair.\u201d
\nTheir goals for the future are to continue on with physiotherapy and see if he can simply gain some of his independence back.
\nBefore his accident, Chris was a self-employed landscaper and actively involved in his circle and the wider community. Cathy says he\u2019s always been known as a very positive person and willing to lend a hand.
\n\u201cMy not being able to do anything is tough,\u201d he says. \u201cI always have to have other people do stuff for me. People don\u2019t really have an idea of what goes on, but it\u2019s tough \u2013 and a lot tougher than regular life.\u201d
\n\u201cAt the end of the day, I just want him to be happy,\u201d adds Cathy. \u201cHis mobility doesn\u2019t make him happy or not, that doesn\u2019t deprive him, but we\u2019re just trying to find those things that make his life a little easier so we\u2019re comfortable in our new normal. We\u2019ve learned to cherish every moment, every movement. I think a lot of times we take for granted the little things in life, just like feeding yourself or going to the bathroom yourself. It\u2019s really eye-opening just to be gratified to move my body every day knowing that he can\u2019t.
\n\u201cHe says, \u2018you just start to be grateful for the little things.\u2019 We find such joy in the little things. The other day, he moved his finger just the slightest little bit and it was the best Valentine\u2019s Day present in the world. It was just flickering and we were both ecstatic.\u201d
\nFor more on Chris and Cathy Hodgins and how to support their ongoing Go Fund Me campaign, visit gofundme.com\/chris-hodgins039s-road-to-recovery. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris and Cathy Hodgins now find joy in the little things.
\nThis past Valentine\u2019s Day, the 34-year-old Aurora couple were overjoyed when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/2019-02-28-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-60x","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 14:52:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}