Terry Prickett

Student

“You should see me skiing. I’m wonderful! But everybody is always yelling at me: ‘What’s the matter? Are you blind or something?’”

SMC is a world of access, where doors are thrown open to every type of future and accomplishment possible. We take our voyages—between classrooms or onward to the university—in a headlong rush to make progress in our lives. And we take for granted the speed with which it all happens. But for Terry Prickett, the walk from the Center for Students with Disabilities over to Admissions was a remarkable voyage in itself. It took place recently, one small step at a time, but she made it. Another segment successfully navigated on the long road back.

“Twenty years ago we got hit head-on by a truck on our way to go waterskiing,” recalls Terry. “My boyfriend and my ten-year-old sister were killed, and I’m still moving slowly. But I’m tough and I always make it to where I’m going.” Terry’s current goal is “to get stronger and healthier. And I love being at SMC. It’s wonderful to be a student again, and my mind and my body respond to this place.” With her severe injuries and loss of vision, a short campus walk is a challenge for Terry. But she’s found a lot of help at SMC.

“I’m pumping iron now in the physical rehab program, and those muscles are building back up. So watch out!” she says with a laugh. “When I first came to the program, Dr. Reese told me, ‘Terry, I’ve got just the right kind of training for you.’ And he did! Everything I’m doing here now just feels so right.” Terry still snow-skis with reckless abandon—“It beats walking,” she says—plays piano especially written for one hand, and is working up a new approach to re-entering academic studies. “But I don’t feel like what I’m doing is ‘coming back,’” she says. “Everything I’m doing now is all ‘going forward.’”

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