Mélanie Labelle, wheelchair rugby
“The first time I went to a Next Gen camp, I was actually sick before I got on the plane,” says Mélanie Labelle. It was the first time since her accident that she’d be traveling without her partner Mike.
“It’s pretty scary doing something for the first time when you’re disabled,” she says. “There’s a lot of anxiety because you’re vulnerable and I don’t have the personality of someone that’s going to ask for help, either.”
It was 2018 and Labelle was heading to her first wheelchair rugby Next Generation training camp, just two years after she broke her neck after a fall while swing dancing.
Without her partner at her side, Labelle had to hire an aide to travel with her, to help her get dressed, make meals and get ready to go to practice.
Funding covered the costs for the camp and for her travel, so she could afford to have help with her. “Having this paid for was key,” she said. “I wouldn’t have been able to afford to go. I couldn’t have gone.”
It’s a good thing she did. Labelle has earned her spot on the national wheelchair rugby team and won a silver medal at the 2019 Lima Parapan American Games, but it wasn’t always her first choice of sports. It was at the urging of two of her kinesiologists in rehab that got her interested in the first place.
“It was pushed on me,” Labelle says with a laugh. But it’s been a game changer in her post-accident life.
“Independence and community,” she says. “That’s what rugby’s brought for me. I couldn’t have imagined how far I’d be or how independent I’d be.”
When she was introduced to the sport, she wasn’t comfortable in her wheelchair. She couldn’t transfer from one chair to another. She had problems maneuvering on the streets.
“People had to push me around,” she says. “When that’s what you’re facing, you don’t know that you’re going to get better or stronger. I thought I’d always have to have someone next to me. Until the guys from rugby started showing up for me at rehab.”
Team members started texting or calling, offering their suggestions on wheelchair rugby or life, especially on adapting to life after a significant injury. They’d offer tips about winterizing her wheelchair. They offered perspective on their recoveries. These conversations eased Labelle’s mind. They made her realize that while not all paths to recovery are the same, she was in a good place. She was growing.
“It wasn’t a struggle anymore,” she adds. “In rehab, you’re in survival mode. In rugby, you’re playing. You’re having fun. It changes the mood completely. You’re not just facing barriers. You’re doing things. You may fail, but you’re failing constructively.”
