[wpvideo mgHwz5ih]

A couple people pointed out that I hadn’t put up a video in a while.  Well, sorry, but my videographer (my dad) no longer resides in Chicago!  Haha… this one is of me at therapy today.  Tiffany took the video.  This is after already walking about half a mile.  I haven’t sat down in about 30-40 minutes.  Total distance walked was about 2/3 a mile!  Goal is a mile without sitting and I think I can do it soon.

New Goals - Why Wait for the New Year?

Rebecca and I keep reliving the wedding and thinking about all the cool things that happened, how great it was to have most of our friends and family there, and in general how it all came together to create amazing memories.  She keeps saying, “I want to get married again!” and I have to remind myself that she means to ME.  Ha!  We haven’t even seen the professional photos from the photographer we actually paid, yet thanks to Facebook and having tons of friends with smartphones, we have about 1000 photos already and they look awesome.  If you are one of those contributors: thanks!

That, the stair climb being over, Rebecca’s marathon over, and now my therapy is only 2 days a week instead of 3 (insurance limitations).  It will likely drop to 1 day a week in the new year.  I only get 60 sessions a year. All that means I found myself with more time on my hands and lacking in big goals.  Rebecca, too.  

Right away I went to my goal/dream book and checked out what I could try and tackle soon.  I write down all my goals in a book and then when I complete them I go in and write the date and details.  As far as therapy goes, I am shooting for meeting the goal of walking a mile without sitting down.  I’m also going to attempt a full week without the wheelchair.  

I also just finished another SCI-specific book by Grant Morgan called Two Feet Back.  He was about my age when he was hurt snowmobiling. Similar injury and progress, too.  

So with those things in mind, I started trying to challenge myself more outside of therapy.  Something had to replace those stair workouts.  Friday, Rebecca and I caught a cab to a BYOB painting class, then went to an awesome Italian dinner.  

I clearly have no idea what I’m doing.  

Saturday we met a bunch of friends out for dinner at Uncle Julio’s.  We took the bus for that and then a friend drove us home.  

Sunday I took the bus and went to church (Rebecca was working), then jumped in CJK’s car and was finally able to hang out with a bunch of people at Ben’s place.  I haven’t been able to before since there are a bunch of stairs.  So that was cool.  

Last night I took the bus, met a work acquaintance for a couple bourbons, and took the bus home.  The Montrose bus, unfortunately, takes a 17 minute driver break about 0.3 miles from my apartment.  

Why am I telling you all this?  Because I did all those things without the wheelchair!  I just put a few things in my pockets and then took the crutches.  The colder weather is actually great for me because I usually get all sweaty from walking around.  30-50 degrees feels awesome outside to me (when I’m working out).  The only part of it that made me nervous was the 0.3 mile walk home from where the bus dropped me off last night.  It was dark but that wasn’t a big deal.  I do worry when I don’t make it across an intersection fast enough to beat the light changing.  But so far no issues there.  

The wind, though, was terrible.  First, everyone left the bus and the driver said, “Are you going to stay on?  I’m going for a 17 minute break before I start again.”  I said I’d get off, and then she just left me there - alone.  I have a bit of a hard time getting up from the bus seat so that was interesting.  But it went alright under the surprise pressure of realizing I HAD to do it, or flounder on the floor for 17 minutes.

When I got out of the bus, it felt good to be walking alone, plus I was proud of standing and stepping off the bus unassisted.  I figured it was gonna be a while for me to get home so I started singing songs while I walked.  Then it got windy.  I kept singing songs but the wind picked up to the point that it was trying to knock me over.  The street had created a wind tunnel at what had to be 30 mph, minimum.  You know how you have to lean into wind like that when you walk?  Well I was leaning with crutches, taking tiny steps hoping it would die down.  It didn’t. Then I crossed the street and a gust of wind about knocked me down.  Stepping up a curb with strong wind is also no fun.  My singing turned into silence which turned into occasional cursing.  I think one quick prayer I said was, “Dear Lord, please give me the strength to walk in this wind… that You created.  Thanks for the challenge!”  So that tedious/precarious trip got me a little down last night.  But I suppose it was just another therapy session, really, preparing me for more unforeseen obstacles.  

I’m pretty happy with the decreased wheelchair usage.  In fact, it has made it even more annoying when I DO need the wheelchair.  I’ve mentioned before that I hate how, on the bus, the wheelchair spot takes up 4 normal seats.  So it’s nice to just get on there with crutches.

Other than that, wheelchair basketball is going awesome.  The coaches use tons of strategy, we run all kinds of drills, and it just feels like much more of a team sport than softball did.  On top of that, there are now 3 other folks that were inpatients with me at RIC playing!  Tony, Jayme, and Kip are all there.  We make up half of the division 3 team and we have a tournament this weekend that should be fun.  It’s a really good time.  Jayme has already flipped his wheelchair over twice being overly aggressive on offense.  Lots of ramming into each other out there - really fun!  And it’s good for endurance.  You basically push up and down the court, constantly, until the whistle blows.  

Oh and I also discovered that I can do pushups.  Rebecca decided to do some the other night and I figured I’d see if I could do it.  Before when I tried, I just didn’t have the core strength to hold my body in that plank position.  But I got down there this time and cranked out 20 pushups.  It was extremely difficult, and kind of bittersweet.  I’m glad I can do them now but I’ve never been so weak that I did less than 50.  I guess that’s another goal for me.  50 legit push-ups, post-injury.  Where’s that goal book?….

Okay that’s it for now.  Back to work!  

Chip

7 months - and Sears (sorry, Willis) Tower

Update after writing: This is lengthy.  

I was officially hurt over 7 months ago, now.  My peak recovery time is supposedly over, which I think is a load of baloney.  The more I talk with people and the more I read about neuroplasticity, the more I believe that recovery can occur indefinitely.  

I’m now married, which is still bizarre to me.  Sunday after the stair climb I was quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times as saying, “My therapist and wife pushed me to continue.  I’m glad they did.”  It was really weird seeing “wife” mentioned by me in the newspaper.  Very odd haha…  I’m very happy that we’re married, though.  For me, it adds focus to the whole thing.  Like, “Okay, so we’re married, now.  So what gigantic goals are we gonna go tackle together???”  We start with world peace and curing the world of hunger and dial it back accordingly.  Anyway here are a few photos from our “mini”-moon, since apparently our actual honeymoon will involve going to an island when it is crazy cold in Chicago.

Us at Cumberland Falls, Kentucky. 

Hopped out of the wheelchair for these.

Me driving.  Explanation to follow.  

Smoky Mountains, Tennessee

Awesome tree in the Smoky Mountains. 

So yeah I drove a lot.  Like hundreds of miles.  I got some hand controls off eBay to match some that my friend Colin has.  This is what they look like: 

They clamp on to the gas and brake pedals.  It’s like playing a video game or something to drive now.  With cruise control I can go forever.  I can’t really eat a sandwich and use my knee to drive like before, but I suppose this is safer than that, anyway :)  I drove all the way from Gatlinburg to Louisville, so feeling fairly confident with the controls, now.  

The event that my buddy Tom told me to write about is the SkyRise Chicago event that happened this past Sunday.  I mentioned a while back that I had signed up to climb the Sears (Willis) Tower to raise money for RIC.  Tons of people were there - it was really very cool.  Rebecca ran up, as well, then came back down and basically did most of it all over again, albeit extremely slowly, to support me.  She grabbed my crutches when needed, waters when I earned them (her method), and squirts of some strange, organic, honey and molasses mixture for endurance.  Here’s the story:

At minutes til 7am, we arrived and put our bibs on.  It felt amazing to put on a bib again.  It felt like I was competing again and doing something truly athletic.  I didn’t even realize I was missing it that much.  Walter - one of my therapists - was waiting on us.  Little did I know he had actually trained at home in order to help me up the stairs.  He has terrible knees and this was going to be a stretch for him.  Awesome guy.  He asked if I wanted to start on 33 and I told him let’s go for the whole thing!  Why not?!?!

Well, my first mistake was conserving my energy all the way until the start. That’s when I got out of the wheelchair.  My legs were stiff from the travel and little sleep.  I usually walk up and down the hall before climbing stairs at home to loosen them up.  I didn’t realize it was only about 30 feet until the stairs started.  Whoops.  On top of that, my left knee was still hyperextended thanks to me being overzealous about standing at a bar a few weeks ago.  So the very first few steps, my left knee tried to buckle and my right knee wouldn’t bend.  Terrible start!  On top of that I had worked out the math of how many minutes I could spend on each floor in order to climb in the allotted 5 hours.  The first few floors were huge - the base of the Sears Tower - and it messed with my head.  After 2 floors I realized we had been going for 15 minutes.  Dr. Smith, the RIC CEO, cheers me on as she runs by.  I was WAY, WAY behind schedule and got extremely discouraged.  Walter was very encouraging but I started taking long breaks between each floor.  It took tons of effort and an hour to get to the 11th floor.  I had walked more, stretched… everything I could think of to loosen up.  But my right leg was still very tight and my left leg kept wanting to give out.  So I used more of my arms.  I pushed off the left crutch and pulled on the handrail with my right arm.  Some of the stairs were basically dips for me (it’s an arm exercise - look it up).  Especially the last stair before the landings.  Walter showed me a video of Rebecca and I dancing at the wedding, which was awesome, but didn’t solve the problem.  Rebecca had run the whole thing, come down, grabbed some stuff, and met us on the 11th floor.  I knew I was doing bad by how surprised she was that I wasn’t up higher.  I should have been at the 30th floor by then.  We made it to the 13th floor and I started talking about stopping.  I couldn’t see the point of continuing if I wasn’t going to be able to get to the top.  They said, “Come on!  Do it for YOU!  Beat your record at least!”  So I said fine let’s go to the 31st floor, since that would be a new record for me in steps.  They didn’t like that, especially Rebecca - “Chip, come on!  Let’s get to the water station on 24, then go 5 floors at a time.  Let’s get to 52.  There’s 103 floors so then you’ll be able to say you climbed half of the Sears Tower!”  I was on board for getting to where there was water, but not so much floor 52.  It seems insurmountable, and frankly, pointless.  I got to the 24th floor and complained again.  My leg was killing me, my shoulders and triceps were already fatigued from compensating for my stupid left leg, and I just didn’t see the point.  They reminded me of at least beating my previous record so I kept going.  

Floor 25, 26, 27… so hard!!! I wanted to seriously just go do the handcycle equivalent, which they were doing on the first floor for medals.  28, 29, 30… 32?  What happened to 31?  Whatever, new record!  I’m done!  Wait, here’s Tiffany!  She is managing floors 30 to 40, the volunteers, the water, etc.  There is a big break area at 33, where I COULD have started.  So I go there for a nice sitting break.  Tiffany is clearly concerned about my knee and my slow pace.  Walter is all sweaty but doing great.  Rebecca is a little down, I can tell, from my attitude.  They talked more about getting to 52 so I could say I made it halfway.  Then something occurred to me… “Tiffany, since I was supposed to start on 33, any chance I can skip up to 66?  I know that’s the other big station and it would be the same as if I started on 33, anyway, right?  If I could start there, I think I can push through.”  I knew that shooting for the top instead of an arbitrary floor would really get me rolling.  She went and asked, and it was alright!  So we all jumped into a giant freight elevator and made our way to 66.  

It felt really wrong, at first, getting to 66.  At 33 I was the only one drenched with sweat.  And maybe Walter.  At 66 EVERYONE was looking more fatigued, tired, and sweaty.  People were going far slower, which was actually nice for me.  I hated people sprinting past me at the start. That drove me nuts, since I knew I’D be that guy if I hadn’t gotten hurt.  I felt a little bad about skipping the middle 33 floors, but I also knew if I didn’t I had zero chance of getting to the top.  Now I had a chance!  So I turned on the music and started up the stairs… fast.  Way too fast!  I went up probably 3 floors in 3 minutes and then died.  I was toast.  I realized I was overheated and that this was a poor strategy.  I took a short break and then started going up the stairs with as little brute force as possible.  I slowed WAY down.  It let me take on a few floors at a time that way.  Rebecca and Walter continued to be very encouraging throughout all this.  83 was my next goal.  Not only was it a water break station - the last - but also it marked 50 floors for me, or about 1000 stairs.  That was one of the goals in my goal book.  And it also left only 20 floors until the top.  Around 77 I was (yet again) really struggling.  It felt like 10 minutes between when Rebecca would say, “Chip!  Only 26 floors to go!” until she said 25.  Actually it felt like an eternity.  I kept trucking.  My left knee was hanging in there and my arms would be okay if I occasionally took a short standing break.  My right leg was actually the true champ.  It had to take every single step since my left leg couldn’t.  Then it would push up to drag up my left leg.  It never got tired - not really.  It was my arms that slowed me down.  I started thinking about next year and climbing the whole thing - and doing THAT faster than I was doing the 70 floors this year.  But that was getting ahead of myself.  

I saw Mark Stephan pass and he was so psyched he started telling me how awesome I was and cursing in a good way.  That definitely psyched me up.  We got to floor 83 and I plopped down… hard.  Stuff started spinning and I had a strong desire to take a nap.  I realized I was passing out and I think Rebecca noticed.  She grabbed a couple waters and forced some of that gross honey/molasses stuff down my throat.  It was so thick it barely came out of the bottle.  I saw Shannon go by and he was doing great!  I felt stupid for having to sit so long.  Minutes.  I had a ton more water and then Rebecca and Walter kept telling me to GO! GO! LET’S GO!, but I could literally feel the energy returning to me.  I wasn’t done, yet, but I needed a minute.  Finally, I headed out and back to the stairs.  

The next section got really narrow.  Then there was the nice surprise of there being 28 steps per floor instead of 20.  Then it was suddenly just 21. I wanted to just head to the top and get it over with, but thanks to my crutch technique I kept taking up the entire width of the stairwell.  Every 7 or 14 stairs I climbed, I would notice there were about 10-15 people waiting to get by.  So I’d stand to the side, rest, and let them pass.  Senator Mark Kirk passed at one point with camera crew in tow.  My favorites were the firefighters - all in full gear.  One guy even had a tank on his back.  Respect!  A few of them were waiting for me to get to the next landing so they could pass.  When I did another couple dips to get to the top, I heard one say to another, “Dude, that was ALL arms!”  It made me proud and at the same time pissed me off that my stupid left leg was creating so much work for my arms.  Dangit!  

84, 85, 86… So stinking tired!  I started doing the math of how many steps I had left.  At 21 per floor, that was 357… right?  Then just subtract 21 for every floor… okay… so now just 296… I can do that, right?  Now just something like 210… yeah 10 floors = 210, right?  I can do this!  I kept taking a break every 7-14 steps which was driving Rebecca nuts.  But I knew I’d make it.  My arms were about to fall off but I was gonna make it.  With 2 floors to go, some guy ran down from the top, saw me, and ran back up saying, “I just saw Chip - start the music!”  I found out later that the whole thing was over but that they waiting on me to cheer me on for a good, memorable finish.  I roared up the last 2 flights as fast as I could muster and yelled out “AHHHHH!!!!! YEAHHH!!!!!”  When I could see the volunteers at the top clapping.  I lost it!  I kept yelling and even lifted my crutches to show everyone I didn’t need them (I almost collapsed haha… pretty dumb).  Rebecca said, “Don’t you want your chair?” and heck yes I did.  

I sat down and it felt amazing.  Dr. Smith leaned down and said, “When I passed you on the 2nd or 3rd floor, I have to be honest… I didn’t think you were gonna make it.  We waited for you when someone said you were just a few floors away.  Great job and thank you!”  

We took some pics…

Rebecca and I up top on the glass floor - you can see straight down from there.  I tried hopping the chair on it to freak her out. 

I honestly don’t remember which floor this was on.  I’m sure my arms were dead, regardless.  Rebecca is so tan!  Walter is not.

View after climbing 70 tortuous floors.  It felt like a mountain.

One of the volunteers almost cried about it and then gave me her sign.  

Rebecca and I were exhausted.  We went for a great brunch at Melrose Diner (I had a giant omelette, 2 buckwheat pancakes, a bowl of fruit, coffee, and a piece of pie) and then headed home to relax.  We were asleep around 9 or 10 I think.  That’s early for us.

The next day I had texts and emails about being in the newspaper and on TV.  The newspaper quoted me as saying I was glad “my wife” and my therapist pushed me so hard.  The TV clip, thankfully, even had me saying, “Thanks to God, really, and the RIC, I will hopefully climb the Sears Tower today.”  I had forgotten about the interview before the climb with WGN.  Really cool that they left the part about God in there!  I was psyched about that.  

Dear God, thank You for my life.  Thank You for giving me appreciation of all that You have given us.  Thank You for surrounding me with people that won’t let me quit.  Thank You for giving me insight into what really matters in life.  Thank You for Rebecca.  Thank You for Walter and Tiffany.  Thank You for my amazing family.  Dear Lord, please continue to heal me.  Please heal all those who are suffering, both physically and mentally.  Please instill Your Holy Spirit in those where it is lacking.  Show them how great this world can be if they see it with Your will in mind.  Please be with my friend, Pat, who had a bad fall and cracked his skull.  Dear Lord, give me wisdom, give me patience, give me vision so I can see your path.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.  

G’night!
Chip