Crazy times -

It’s been over a couple weeks since I’ve posted.  I realize the inconsistency of my posts makes it hard to stay up-to-date.  Thanks to all of you who are so extremely supportive of me.  

By far the biggest thing that’s happened lately is that I got married yesterday to the love of my life, Rebecca.  

It was tons of stress beforehand leading into tons of fun for the wedding.  It went better than I could have hoped.  We are really happy and thank everyone that attended and the many well wishes from those that couldn’t. 

As far as my progress is concerned, I was able to really push the envelope yesterday.  I stood for the entire wedding, leaning against a post my dad and Paul had installed a day before.  It worked great so I only needed one crutch to stand.  

Then at the reception, which was awesome (if I may say so), I walked around, got on the dance floor “danced” (read: swayed) with Rebecca, then danced as much as I could with crutches.  Walter, one of my RIC PTs, was there and was extremely helpful.  I definitely felt more confident with him there.  At the end of the night, I climbed probably 40 steps, exhausted, and walked to bed.  All in all an awesome night - not because of my progress… plenty of other stuff trumped that.

Also, about a week before the wedding, I climbed more stairs than ever before at 616.  It took me less than 2 hours to do that.  I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to make it up the entire Sears Tower next Sunday, but whatever I do I’m going to give it all I got!

I’m extremely excited about how things are going right now on all fronts of my life.  It feels like lots of opportunities are opening up and I hope that continues.  

Thank you, Lord, for all you have given me.

Gnight,

Chip

[wpvideo a6iAEIUg]

First video in a while!  I think I’ll start uploading a bunch of these to YouTube since not many know of my blog.  But this is me walking at a typical pace with the crutches, which I can now stand up with pretty consistently.  Today my knees were bending more than usual (i.e. at all), so Tiffany took a video.  

More firsts... soon to be a big first!

Lots to talk about… I’ll try not to write a novel. 

Many first for me this past week.  In therapy, I’ve been working on standing with crutches.  I even successfully attempted it at home a few times.  Crutches are harder to walk with from a physical effort aspect, but it promotes better form and also allows you to move over more types of terrain.  We also practiced stepping up and down from a curb.  So one first was standing up with crutches unassisted.  

Another first was stepping up onto the treadmill unassisted.  I think that was over a foot from the ground, so that was cool.  Usually they have to have a couple people lift my wheelchair up there for me to stand up.  After I did that fairly easily, Tiffany said, “How about from now on when you get to therapy we leave your wheelchair at the door?”  I was all about that.  Can’t wait until tomorrow to implement it.  

To date, I haven’t walked very far with the crutches.  I’ve been doing lots of stairs but the long walks haven’t been part of my routine lately.  Yesterday that changed.  I stood up with the crutches from bed, and got so excited about it that I decided to try to take them a ways outside.  We wanted to go to brunch so I killed two birds with one stone.  I walked a little less than a quarter mile to get to the bus stop.  That alone exhausted me.  I got up on the bus by stepping up.  Then I got to enjoy sitting in a normal seat.  Usually I have to lock in my wheelchair in a spot that takes up 3-4 seats, depending on the model of bus.  So this was pretty nice and it felt pretty normal again.  We had a great brunch at Tweet, I walked to the bus stop, took the bus back south, and walked home.  No wheelchair.  It totally exhausted me but it felt great.  Two new firsts there with the distance with crutches and the bus.  

My friend at RIC seems to be doing better.  He got outside today.  It’s hard to start doing that, realizing there are slanted sidewalks and realizing how different you are to others.  But it’s a healthy transition.  Please keep praying for him and his wife.  

I’m about 6 months post-injury.  The primary recovery period is supposedly over, and yet I just had a great week.  Perhaps I’m adapting more than recovering, but regardless, Tiffany thinks I’m still making gains, so I’m gonna keep pushing.  It’s about 3 weeks until the wedding and 4 weeks until the SkyRise Chicago stair climb.  Plenty to look forward to!  

G’night,
Chip

Exhausted

There simply isn’t enough time in the day!  How many people say that?  

We had a nice trip home to Kentucky for a couple days this weekend to get some of the wedding stuff done.  I think it’s going to work out alright.  Part of the trip including revisiting Hermitage Farm to pick out where exactly we wanted to get married.  I missed out on the house last time so made sure I was all geared up for some stairs.  Upstairs, downstairs… the house is absolutely amazing.  Really incredible.  Built in 1840 or something nuts like that.  Now it’s owned by the Brown family - or rather the wife is a Brown - that is one of Louisville’s wealthiest families.  Pretty cool stuff.  There was even a chair made from a saddle, which I thought was pretty cool.  

After getting to the basement the gang encouraged me to just walk out the side door and up the two measly stairs to get back to the main lawn.  The only thing was that they had no railing and I wasn’t really practiced in doing that with the crutches.  I fell for the first time while walking (I’ve fallen trying to stand up a couple times).  It was pretty humbling.  They were also brick steps and thanks to my lack of movement in the legs, they kind of just banged into the bricks.  I felt that!  No loss of sensation there!  Haha… oh well I guess it had to happen eventually.  Frankly, I was wondering if I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough since I hadn’t really fallen.  

I haven’t done a stair marathon since I did the whole building over a week ago.  I’ve just been so worn out from work, therapy, wedding planning, etc., that it didn’t seem like a good idea.  But I WILL be climbing as much as I can of the Sears (Willis) Tower on Nov. 3!  If you feel like throwing a few bones to the cause (all proceeds go to RIC), you can read about it here:

http://ric.convio.net/site/TR/SkyRise/General?px=1198622&pg=personal&fr_id=1070

It’s 2,109 stairs and I think they are giving me a 5 hour time limit.  I’m just going to keep on trucking up those stairs until something gives out.  It might very well be my shoulders before the legs.  We shall see.  It would be helpful if my left leg could step up as well so please pray for that!

Speaking of prayer, I met a guy recently at RIC that really needs a helping of it.  I won’t give a name since he doesn’t know I’m doing it, but he’s been at RIC for about 6 weeks and is really having a hard time emotionally/mentally with the change, much as I did and continue to do.  I am going to keep visiting him on the 7th floor sometimes after I finish my therapy.  He is a C6 injury, which means a fair amount further up than me, affecting his arms and hands a bit, his trunk, and of course, his legs.  Please pray for him and his wife.

Work is certainly keeping me busy, as is wedding planning.  It seems ridiculous that so much planning goes into something that lasts a day.  But I guess you could say it lasts a lifetime, too.  It should be fun, though.  

Work, however, is exhausting me.  I hope that it all has some sort of meaning.  I want to positively influence the staff as much as possible.  It’s extremely hard to do.  You can pray for that, too, if you want.  

God bless and g’night - 

Chip