Paralysis scare unable to still dream

Senque Carey could deal with the paralysis. He knew his body would click back on, and it did, a little at a time.

First the arms and fingers, a few hours after he was carried in fearful silence from the New Mexico basketball court. Then his legs and toes, after two weeks that tested his unshakable faith.

The man they call Q -- his first name, pronounced Sen-Q, means "everlasting" in Swahili -- never quit on a court and wouldn't quit in the hospital as he strained through hours of physical therapy each day. He was sure he would walk again, though his doctors were less certain, and he wondered only how soon he could play again.

One of the toughest moments athletes have to face is the time when they stop being athletes. Leaving the games behind is like losing a piece of their soul, their identity, their life. That's what Carey worries about and what he doesn't want to let go at age 24. At least not without a fight and some careful thought.

Six weeks after he took a head-snapping charge in a game, his shoulders and hamstrings still burn, pain radiating down his spinal column from two herniated discs in his neck. Back spasms and neck stiffness make it hard to turn left or right, up or down. His balance is off and his muscles are at half-strength.

He still has some numbness in his legs. Yet, none of that stops him from going to practices and games, pitching in like an extra coach.

"I can yell with the best of 'em," he says.

In three weeks, surgeons will remove the two damaged discs and fuse his neck to take pressure off his spinal cord. Carey will be in a neck brace for two months after that, then he's looking at a year or more of physical therapy.

Carey feels blessed to be as healthy as he is, walking on his own power, but he wants more. A 6-foot-4, senior point guard, he still dreams of taking a shot at the pros.

At the moment, nobody's ruling anything out. And nobody should. The belief that it's possible will help carry him through the rigors of rehab, giving him a goal even if he has to abandon it in the end.

"I have a lot of doors wide open," Carey says, putting a typically upbeat spin on his situation. "I want to broadcast and I want to coach, and I'll pursue them if I can't keep playing. I'm going to give it everything I've got. But I'm also going to be smart. I can't really sit here and say for sure that I'm going to play again."

Carey played his freshman and sophomore years at Washington and made friends there with Curtis Williams, a safety on the football team. Williams was paralyzed from the neck down a little more than two years ago in a game at Stanford. He died in his sleep last May of complications associated with his paralysis.

"I kept thinking about Curtis in the hospital," Carey says. "I was just remembering how positive and how strong he was."

Carey is having his surgery at Stanford, near where he grew up in a single-parent home on the dangerous streets of East Palo Alto and not far from the prep school he attended on a grant, St. Francis.

Funny how people touch one another. Carey drew inspiration from Williams and was helped along in life by a benefactor named Jill Smith, a guardian named Nelson Washington, friends, family and coaches. They, in turn, have been inspired by him.

"There's a certain magnetism about Q that makes everybody around him feel good," St. Francis coach Steve Filios says. "Yeah, he was a good shooter, good ballhandler and unbelievable passer. But his greatest asset as a player is he made everybody else on our team better."

Washington and his wife took in Carey while he attended St. Francis, and he will stay with them after the surgery before returning to Albuquerque.

"He's a survivor," Washington says. "He's overcome a lot in his life to make it out of the kind of neighborhood we both came from. I think he will play again, and after the surgery he won't be in any more risk than anyone else. If you're always worried about 'what if,' you won't amount to anything."

Carey's longtime girlfriend, Nadia Steed, is less eager to see him back on a court.

"My biggest concern is that he be able to walk and be an able-bodied person," she says. "I'd be nervous if and when he plays again, but I also know it's really a very important thing for him to do."

Steed set up a Web site for Carey (www.senquecarey.com) before the season. Since the injury, Carey says, he's received 2,735 e-mails from people around the country offering encouragement and prayers.

One came from a paralyzed, 37-year-old man on the East Coast who wondered how Carey was able to stay so positive. Carey called back, saying: "Don't believe people when they tell you that you can't do this or that."

Even when he was down, Carey was trying to make others better.

Steve Wilstein is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press.