Giulia Lamarca, a 27-year-old woman from Turin, Italy, was on her motorbike driving through the same road she had travelled along over the last five years when the vehicle slipped and threw her off.
The psychologist was left with a damaged vertebra, torn spine and facing the prospect of life using a wheelchair.
Giulia was rushed to the hospital where she was told that she would need to have two metal plates and eight screws fitted to her spine to fix four vertebras in place.
The surgery was a success, but she had to stay in hospital for a year to undergo two sessions of physiotherapy each day for five days a week to adjust to the injury.
During rehab, Giulia met her physiotherapist, Andrea Decarlini, with whom she spent endless hours with working on her recovery.
The two ended up falling in love and eventually got married, five years after the accident.
Now Giulia and Andrea are travelling the world together and plan on having a family of their own one day.
Despite her injuries, Giulia stayed positive during her hospital stay and would read jokes every morning to help her come to terms with her new life.
While she was in rehab, she developed feelings for Andrea but thought they were one-sided, until he revealed his attraction to her in a sweet post-it note.
‘We started going out as friends, as I really needed to escape the hospital from time to time, and from the first day we went out together we have seen each other every day,’ she said.
‘I was too scared to tell Andrea how I felt, until I received a very romantic post-it note from him that read “from the person who knows you the most. I love you”.
‘He made me feel special, able and free to travel and go on.
‘My family and friends are very happy and supportive about our relationship because they can see how much happier we are together.’
Since her recovery, Giulia has decided to live life to the full and travels all over the world with her husband. She uses Instagram to prove that having a disability doesn’t have to stop anyone from living their best life.
Since 2011, Giulia and Andrea have travelled to 23 countries, including the U.S, Australia, Perù, Bolivia, China, and many more.
Giulia and Andrea have a large map in their living room documenting all the places they have travelled to so far, and next on their itinerary is a visit to all Seven Wonders of the World.
‘I love travelling and I feel like a citizen of the world. I’m in a wheelchair due to an accident but above all I’m simply Giulia, with all my different facets,’ she said.
‘Travelling makes me feel free, I feel “able” just like everyone else.
‘I want to say, that there are certain things that happen in your life that are not beautiful or very nice and it’s useless to always look for a positive moral in every bad thing that happens.
‘What will help is to rise up and live again and to say “things are now this way, what can I do to make sure I can do all those things I did before?”
‘Never let anything or anyone tell you something is impossible. I invite everyone to say as I say each morning “today is a good day and I will create the life that I dream of”.’
Words to live by.
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