A friend recently asked me what my secret SCI obsession was. Initially confused, I tamped down the instinct to ask what the hell she was talking about, forced a pensive face and blurted out, “Monkeys.”

Before she could verbalize the confusion on her face, I tried to explain.

I told her my simian obsession dated back to the early days of my initial rehab stint. In those dark times, someone threw out the idea of a canine companion in hopes of brightening my day. My lack of enthusiasm must have been obvious, because the conversation quickly segued to less traditional companion animals and, eventually, to monkeys.

I was sold.

Let me preface this by saying, yes, I know monkeys and gorillas are not the same, but …

I instantly pictured myself riding a giant silverback caregiver. Who needs pivot transfers or sliding boards when you have a soft, cuddly 400-pound ball of muscles to swing you around? I could cling to his back or he could effortlessly swoop me around. I might not even need a wheelchair!

The nurses and therapists got a good laugh out of my dream, and it took my mind off the less cheery reality of inpatient rehab. Maybe that would have been the end of my monkey obsession, if not for the unit psychologist.

She remembered reading about a place that actually trained (much smaller) capuchin monkeys to help quadriplegics and provide emotional support. She couldn’t remember where she’d read about it, but she swore there was a movie about the service and promised to help track it down.

It wasn’t my silverback, but the idea of a cute, tiny monkey helping me existed right at the perfect intersection of interesting, ridiculous and hilarious so as to make it unforgettable. Without the instant gratification of today’s internet (it was 1998), my imagination ran wild anticipating what the helper monkey setup would actually look like.

I didn’t have to wait long, as somebody figured out the name of the movie and tracked down an old VHS copy. I can still remember someone rolling one of the old TV/video carts into my room and showing me the movie box: Monkey Shines. The cover featured a psychotic-looking stuffed monkey holding a bloody straight razor with the caption “An Experiment in Fear.”

As I watched the quadriplegic protagonist try to save all of his friends from the homicidal wrath of the possessed primate, I couldn’t stop thinking about how genuinely excited the psychologist was upon hearing I was going to watch the movie. I wondered if she had any idea the film wasn’t a documentary about a service monkey organization, but rather a psychological horror film about an ill-adjusted quad and the scientifically-altered monkey that serves as a physical manifestation of his rage. As ridiculous as it was to be watching this in SCI rehab as a newly-injured 18-year-old, the fact she had all but endorsed it blew my mind.

Any serious flirtation with the idea of getting a helper monkey ended there for me, but my obsession with the concept only grew. My parents and I occasionally joked about my caregiver ape, and I made a point of recommending Monkey Shines to any quad friends who hadn’t seen it. Fifteen years later, I even wrote a story about a Massachusetts nonprofit that actually provided quadriplegics with trained monkeys.

By the time I finished relaying all of this to my friend, she had totally checked out. “That’s funny,” she said, “but I was just trying to find out if there is a wheelchair user you secretly follow.”

Oh. “Not really.”

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