Originally appeared on E! Online
Despite it all, Nev Schulman is feeling grateful.
In an emotional post, the Catfish host shared he suffered an accident that left him with a broken neck while reflecting on how the moments with his family, including wife Laura Perlongo and kids Cleo, Beau and Cy, now feel all the more special.
“I went fishing with my family on Sunday,” Schulman captioned an Aug. 10 Instagram post, noting they were able to secure a last-minute boat. “It was incredible, my son’s idea. One of those days that just work. A day full of love and wonder in the way only calm days in nature with family can be.”
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However, his life changed just one day later, as he wrote, “Monday was not a day like that. Monday was a day where I learned what ‘before the accident’ really means. And Monday gave weight to just how lucky I was to have Sunday.”
While on his way to pick up his youngest son Cy from school on a bike, as Schulman explained, he was struck by a truck leaving him with “stable fractures” in his C5 and C6 vertebrae.
“I broke my neck,” he continued. “I’m not paralyzed. My hands were a question mark there for a minute but the human body is incredible and so are HUMANS. The incredible knowledge and care from everyone in the medical community has been so remarkable. It’s hard to feel sorry for myself when I hear from the doctors about how many people with similar injuries will never walk again.”
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In his post, which began with a trigger warning for the medical imagery, Schulman chronicled his accident, from the voicemail his wife received from a teacher inquiring as to who was going to pick their son up from school, to x-rays of his neck while lying in a C-collar in a hospital bed, to standing with help from medical staff to being able to hug his children.
“I’m lucky to be here, alive, standing and hugging my family, projected to make a full recovery,” the 39-year-old said. “And I’m really starting to understand the meaning of gratitude. For the big and little things before the accident, and now everything moving forward.”
He also took a moment to express his gratitude for that fishing trip.
“We hadn’t planned on fishing last Sunday and my instinct was to say no to scramble-planning a day trip,” he reflected. “But looking back a week later, I’m so glad I said yes.”
Laura, with whom Schulman tied the knot in 2017, shared a look at his recovery journey — which, thankfully, has now brought him home.
Alongside the words, “He’s home,” Laura posted a video to her Instagram Story which showed Schulman and their oldest Cleo lying in bed together and the 7-year-old grabbing a pillow to place under her father’s arm upon his request.
And in a subsequent video, Cleo had an important message to her dad she conveyed through Chumbawamba’s song “Tubthumping.”
“I get knocked down, but I get up again,” she sang to Schulman as he laughed in bed. “You are never gonna keep me down.”
