The next time you have an itch, leave it alone. Don't scratch it, no matter how irritating it is.
Or, when you go to bed tonight stay in the same position until morning.
Then you will get a glimpse into Jeff Couch's world.
A tragic car accident five years ago rendered him a quadriplegic or a "quad", as he likes to put it.
That accident, however, was not the end, it was only the beginning. It was the birth of a new determination and will to live that he never 
knew he had. It was also brought him and his partner of 15 years, Anna Adamira, closer.
Couch, the former owner of the now defunct Jeff Mex Restaurant, was on his way to dinner on March 31, 2000, when he was involved in an accident on Bay Street, St. Michael, Barbados.
He thought he would walk again within a year, but heard the bad news from doctors that he was paralyzed from the neck down.
His spine and the nerves in his back were twisted and stretched during the accident, resulting in the paralysis.
But it didn't crush his spirit nor that of Anna, who stuck by his side since that day.
"I said before my accident, if I was ever paralyzed I would not want to live. That has changed. I used to look at Christopher Reeves and say I don't want to be like that," said Jeff.
He added: "This can happen to anyone. I was going to dinner one night and woke up the next morning in hospital paralyzed."
Rough Road
Life for the two hasn't been easy. Jeff required expensive equipment and physiotherapy, but thanks to the generosity of friends and sometimes strangers over the years, they've been able to cope.
Jeff, who was quite active before his paralysis, now depends on Anna to do most things for him.
As a result of years of physiotherapy and his own determination to walk again, he can now move his hands, wiggle his toes and pull his knees up ten inches off the bed - a shock to his doctors.
"I'm fortunate because my nerves and spinal cord weren't severed during the accident," he said, speaking from his St. Peter home which he shares with Anna.
Jeff received his first round of stem cell therapy on February 8, and is due for another one in December at The Institute for Regenerative Medicine based here.
The first round should attack the scar tissue that has built up over the injury, in order to give his nerves freedom to move.
At $20,000 a shot, Jeff and Anna had to find creative ways of raising the money.
Jeff knows he wouldn't have made it this far without Anna there by his side. His paralysis did not tear them apart; it brought them close.
"Anna is the strongest woman I've ever met in my life. I couldn't have gone through this without her."
"If our relationship wasn't good before the accident then we'd be in trouble but we had a good solid relationship and her energy and bubbling personality kept me up," he said.
Hardly a day goes by that he's not thankful for Anna and, every day, he gets a little closer to his goal of walking again.
(Excerpted from Nation Newspaper Article dated March 20, 2005
written by Melissa Wickham)