My story and random thoughts while dealing with a C6-C7 subluxation…

That’s right, I’ve moved up in the world from merely crawling on the ground or standing on the parallel bars.  As I’ve said before, recovering from a spinal cord injury can be a lot like being a baby again.  I’ve been fortunate enough to slowly regain functionality throughout my lower body, which was more unexpected than expected by those who know the field and my case well.  This past week, I took my first steps on the parallel bars in physical therapy.  They weren’t pretty steps.  In fact, they were barely steps at all.  But they were still steps nonetheless.

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One thing that has truly struck me since being discharged from the hospital is just how quickly time passes.  And I’m not even talking about how quickly life flies by when we’re all busy living it, but how quickly it passes when you’re not busy living it.  Time seems to be passing me by much quicker now than when I was preoccupied with work and/or school.  I would have thought it to be the other way around.  But I guess when one doesn’t have a significant mental goal to reach for and focus on that there is no basis by which to judge how quickly time is passing.  Or at least, that’s how it is for me.

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I’m still damp.  Not sopping wet, mind you, but just a nice damp.  I got in the pool late this afternoon during a session with a physical therapist I know who lives close by and is helping me out.  It was the second time we got in the pool, the last being about a month ago, and I was excited at the prospect.  The last time we got in the pool, I was able to put weight into my left leg and stand on it.  I was also able to take a few steps, although the therapist had to brace my right knee since the quadriceps and hamstrings weren’t kicking in to help straighten it.  This time went even better.

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Recently, I received a package in the mail from Cleveland, OH.  It had been something I was expecting, as I’d been told by a few folks in the admissions office that something was on the way.  But I had no idea what was inside, and so I anxiously awaited its arrival.  When it did come, I was beyond surprised.

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While an inpatient at Mount Sinai, a set of CT images of my neck were ordered.  Dr. Stein reviewed them and determined everything was healing nicely, and also provided them on CD to Dr. Anant.  Well after my recent visit with Dr. Anant, I managed to get a copy of the CD and I thought I would share some of the more interesting images with you all.  In them, you can clearly see the titanium that is now implanted in my neck: four screws in the back, and one plate in the front.

There are about 52 images in here, so I apologize for the load time.  But they’re worth it.  :)  I also apologize for the layout problems on this page.  They’re due to the width of the CT images, and I will work on getting it resolved at some point, but I make no promises.

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Often times I think about how regularly I post to the blog, and wonder if I should post more often. Maybe more regular posts, but smaller in length. It would be easier to digest and easier for me to write. But then I ultimately come to the conclusion that posting every couple of days would just be too often and not provide enough fodder for quality posts. So I post once every week or two (well, it’s been once every two weeks lately) and wind up having more to say than I’d realized. This whole act of blogging is incredibly cathartic, as you might expect, and the process of organizing my thoughts to write really helps me to deal with everything.

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A large part of rehab so far has made me realize that recovering from a spinal cord injury is a lot like being a baby all over again. You have to rediscover your body and how it works. And sometimes how it doesn’t.  Parts wake up that you’d gotten used to being asleep, and I certainly know how a baby feels when it sits in place wiggling an appendage just because he or she can.  I do that a lot too.  I’ve felt since much earlier in rehab that regaining the ability to walk will quite possibly even more make me feel like a baby.  When my physical therapist had me get on the ground and start crawling, though, I couldn’t help but laugh.

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As many of you know or have discerned from comments to the last major blog post, I have finally been released from Mount Sinai and am now home.  I was finally discharged on Friday, May 23rd, at the very late hour of 7pm.  Being the day before a holiday weekend, I figured there was no way the ambulette service would be anywhere near on time.  So I planned accordingly, packing my things slowly so I’d be ready for their 4pm scheduled arrival.  3:15pm rolls around, and the driver showed up.  I wasn’t ready!  He said they would send another driver back to pick me up around 4pm.  After numerous calls to dispatch to complain, and being told repeatedly, “within 30-45 minutes,” a different crew finally arrived at 7pm to pick me up.  Aye.  And being at home hasn’t been any more smooth/easy, either…

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If you look on the right-hand side just below the search box, you’ll see an input box that allows you to subscribe to blog updates via e-mail.  Since my updates tend to come a bit irregularly (I’m shooting for at least once a week, which I’ve been fairly good at keeping up), you can have an e-mail delivered right to your inbox whenever an update is available.  The subscriptions are handled via FeedBurner, a service offered by Google.  This will make it easy to keep up-to-date. 

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Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.  I am waiting to leave.  My tentative departure date from Mount Sinai was supposed to be this past Tuesday, May 20th.  Well, my first discharge date was back in March, but that’s a whole other story.  But the first realistic one was this past Tuesday. It’s Thursday night and I’m still here waiting to leave, unsure whether or not I’ll be home in time for the Memorial Day weekend.  But being on the cusp of my departure has given me pause to think all about my stay here, how far I’ve come and how deeply this experience has impacted me.

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