PACIFIC BEACH \u2013 When Collin Bosse talks about strength, the Crown Point resident isn\u2019t referring to his family\u2019s triathlete genes or the physical power it once took him to carve a wave in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
At 26, three years after a dive into shallow water in Mission Bay left him paralyzed from the chest down, Bosse has discovered a different kind of muscle.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in the day, strength wasn\u2019t an important part of my life. It was just about being active,\u201d Bosse says. \u201cNow, strength has transformed into a mindset. I enjoy the idea of doing hard things and pushing myself further than I think I can go. To me, the greatest battle someone can face is with their own mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Bosse is winning that battle.<\/p>\n
With only two classes left until he completes his MBA at the University of San Diego<\/a> this month, the San Diego State alumnus (business management) is preparing to transition from student to professional, looking toward a future in digital marketing.<\/p>\n A Santa Barbara native and part of an athletic, high-energy family, Bosse once measured progress in water polo wins, runs completed, waves mastered, and ski slopes conquered. Now, he said he measures progress in \u201csmall wins\u201d \u2014 the kind many take for granted.<\/p>\n A month into his hospitalization, Bosse reached a landmark moment: He was finally able to scratch an itch on his face. It was one of the first signs of regained autonomy following the 2023 spinal cord injury that broke his C5 and C6 vertebrae.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever had to scratch your face and you couldn\u2019t do it \u2014 it\u2019s the worst,\u201d Bosse recalls, laughing. \u201cNow, it\u2019s small things\u2026 those little wins lead to the overarching feeling of independence.\u201d<\/p>\n The fact that he was there to feel that itch at all is a testament to those his mother, Holly Bosse, calls her son\u2019s lifesavers.<\/p>\n Collin Bosse\u2019s friend, Haakon Hoyer-Nielsen, was the one who pulled him from the water and began the immediate lifesaving work. At the same time, Dr. Ali Bagheri, his surgeon at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, performed the critical surgery that followed.<\/p>\n Holly Bosse notes that many other important people and places have been instrumental in his recovery, including Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo., where he received top spinal cord injury care for three months.<\/p>\n Collin Bosse\u2019s journey has been a reconstruction project for his entire family. His sister, Summer Bosse, lives across the street from her brother and remains his top supporter and a lifeline.<\/p>\n Holly Bosse, who splits her time between her work as an educator in Santa Barbara County and San Diego County, where Collin\u2019s father, Brian, works as an assistant manager for the Rancho Santa Fe Association<\/a>, describes the emotional weight of the transition.<\/p>\n \u201cCollin is obviously bearing the brunt of it, the daily pain and the struggle,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s also really hard as parents. We have 23 years of hopes and dreams that are just dashed now, and we\u2019re trying to rebuild new ones. It\u2019s certainly like starting from ground zero.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the struggle, the family\u2019s athletic background provides a framework for resilience.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t ever think we\u2019re beaten,\u201d Holly Bosse said. \u201cWe always have that belief that there\u2019s a win out there for us, so we try to see all these small improvements as adding up to a big win for him.\u201d<\/p>\n As he pushes through challenging therapy several days a week at Carlsbad\u2019s Adapt Functional Movement Center and VIP NeuroRehabilitation Center, surfing remains part of Collin Bosse\u2019s wavelength. While he plans to return to adaptive surfing soon, he has discovered a secondary passion: filming his friends from the shore.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of us ever wanted to be the one to film,\u201d Bosse said of his pre-injury surf trips. \u201cBut this fills that gap. I get to be with my friends at the water, and it makes me feel really good about myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Behind the scenes, the financial reality remains a constant weight. Specialized care often exceeds $6,000 monthly, and there is a long road ahead. The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation<\/a> estimates the lifetime costs for a 25-year-old with a C5-C8 cervical SCI at around $3.5 million. The family\u2019s GoFundMe<\/a> has raised nearly $300,000, and a campaign at Help Hope Live<\/a> is also providing a place for people to donate.<\/p>\n For Bosse, the focus remains on hope \u2013 and providing hope is something he plans to bring to the lives of others who have SCIs by sharing his stories and his victories moving forward. He said his work as a hope dealer also applies to his able-bodied friends.<\/p>\n \u201cLife is hard for everybody,\u201d he says. \u201cBeing open and having compassion for each other is what matters. It really is about holding on to hope and really believing that your life is worth living.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PACIFIC BEACH \u2013 When Collin Bosse talks about strength, the Crown Point resident isn\u2019t referring to his family\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[101911,1103,127473,74,76,75,18065,16852],"class_list":["post-301664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-crown-point","tag-mission-bay","tag-paralyzed","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-surfer","tag-university-of-san-diego"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}