After over 25 years working with spinal cord injury patients at Methodist Rehabilitation Center, occupational therapist Bridgett Pelts knows there is little they can’t do when they set their minds to it.

That includes experiencing the joys of parenthood.

“It is no different for them as with anyone else who wants to have a child, they just have to know there will be challenges,” Pelts said. “They have to be willing to think a little bit differently and adapt the way they do things.”

John “Bones” Cossar has been flaunting his golf scorecard lately.

But it has nothing to do with proving whether he eagled, birdied or parred.

For Cossar, just making it to a tee box is evidence of an evolution he feared he’d never make. Just nine months ago, he couldn’t move a muscle, let alone swing a club.

“Every muscle in my body was paralyzed,” said the chairman emeritus of Mississippi Valley Title Insurance in Ridgeland. “I couldn’t wiggle a finger. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow. I was on a breathing machine and a feeding tube.”

For a seasoned cyclist like Robert Tierce, riding the 60-some-odd miles from his Ridgeland home to Kosciusko may not sound like a Herculean task.

“I used to ride a road bike anywhere from 60 to 70 miles a time, no problem,” he said.

But now, it is quite a feat. Nearly two years ago his right leg was completely paralyzed by a spinal cord injury from a gunshot wound.

Tierce made the jaunt using a recumbent bicycle, which places the rider in a reclining position.