Well… kind of. I still have to wear the brace as my back and torso regain strength.
9:15am - Arrive at hospital for x-rays. When they said, “Okay stand here and take off your brace,” for the x-rays, that didn’t go so well. After a bit of confusion, another doctor came in and held a rolling stool as I transferred over to it. It seemed to work okay.
10:15am - Met with Dr. Muro, who showed us the x-rays and gave me the okay to wean off the brace!
I’m supposed to be “weaning” by wearing the brace 75% of the time this week, 50% of the time next week, etc. I think I’ve worn it about 2 hours today, for therapy. We’ll see how sore I am tomorrow but so far I think it’s good. He said it was a very rough plan, anyway, designed for people that atrophied their muscles. I’ve been working so hard that I’m not sure I lost that much muscle. It’s mainly the range of motion that is really unfamiliar to me, which definitely means the muscles will be doing things they haven’t done in 3 months. We shall see, but so far I’m loving this! My recliner feels 1000x better, as does riding in the car, as does tons of stuff. Using the wheelchair feels worse, sadly. I’m not quite as confident flying down the street with that protective layer gone.
Dr. Muro also answered a lot of lingering questions about the surgery, why certain things were done and others not done, long-term effects, etc. It was good to air it all out and not have any of those “what if” questions out there, anymore.
At RIC I ran into the lunch lady. Well, she handles meals, but I think of her as the lunch lady. She updated me and let me know that most of my friends from the 7th floor were all gone. All new people up there, now! I guess my visits will be to say hi to the therapists. Hopefully they’ll let me be a peer mentor and come in and tell people that it’s only gonna get better.
I also ran into Mark Stephan in the cafeteria. We were both doing work before our respective therapy sessions. By the way, it turns out we both prefer to call them training sessions. Mark is on the board at RIC which I met as a patient a month or so ago. He is a competitive athlete and has done 2 Ironmans, something like 16 marathons, etc. He was biking in a group when his front wheel came off, causing him to crash forward, breaking 2 vertebrae in his neck. He had little or no motion below his neck and zero feeling. While he still has zero feeling below his neck, he can now walk around and even biked cross-country to raise money for the RIC.
http://www.stephanchallenge.com/
Pretty nuts if you ask me! I said, “Couldn’t you have just biked the midwest or something?” Really impressive. Anyway he talked with me for a long while and gave me tons of advice. He repeatedly told me that at 3 months, my body has just begun to heal. When he left RIC after 6 months of therapy, he couldn’t do anything and still needed to be fed and have someone brush his teeth. His injury was 6 years ago and he is still recovering. I’m not thrilled at the idea that recovery will take that long, but the reality is that I will always be recovering, which is both encouraging and scary. He also mentioned that stretching, walking, and neuroplasticity were the key components. And jumping into any research possible on the 13th floor there. I need to research neuroplasticity - no idea what that is.
Therapy went well. Jeremy had me walking around in the AFOs again, focusing on flexing my thighs and bending the knees. Then he had me take my brace off and get into a stretching position I haven’t felt in months…
Okay fine it’s really just a focusing technique to get my hair - which is now somewhat unwieldy - to be uniform and behaved. Jeremy has clearly mastered this. I have much to learn.
Dear Lord, thank You for allowing my bones to recover as planned and without complications. Thank You for the continued healing. Please continue to heal me. Dear Lord, thank You for Scott on 10. His family will leave soon to go home - please be with them and heal Scott. Please be with Jeff, Jayme, Tony, Jimmy, Mark, Gary, the other Mark, and the others that are on 7 or are RIC “alums”. You understand the struggles we all go through. Thank You for always being there. Thank You for making Yourself known through the bible. Please help me to study it more so that I may be stronger and wiser and more loving to others. Thank You for this life You have given me. Help me to not waster it. In Jesus’ name, amen.
G’night,
Chip
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