Achievement

I had a good day today, and I wanted to share.  It's the first really good day I've had in a while.

This morning, I went outside for exercise with Gus and Evelyn.  It's the first time I have gone outside with the express purpose of pushing my wheelchair just for the exercise.  I pushed myself over to the apartment office to drop off my release renewal, then I pushed myself around the block here at the apartment, then I pushed over to the mailboxes to get my mail.  By the time I got back, I was exhausted, but it felt good to raise the heart rate and it worked my arms like nothing I've done since leaving the hospital.

Then it was shower time.  Every time I take a shower, I try to lift my feet over the tub wall myself before giving up and asking for help.  Sometimes I get one, but usually I fail.  Today, for the first time, I succeeded in lifting both feet both in and out of the tub unassisted.  I know it doesn't sound like much, but it meant a lot to me.  I don't know if I can do it again, and it doesn't really mean anything because I still can't remove my socks unassisted so I still can't shower alone, but it felt like progress, and I haven't felt that in a long time.  This accomplishment alone would have made it a good day.

Finally, Cullen and Caitlin came over for dinner and we went for sushi.  I had been looking forward to that for days.  I love sushi, and I love hanging out with Cullen and Caitlin.  After dinner we went to Dairy Queen.

At the Queen

So it's been a good day, and I just felt like sharing.  Now it's time to watch some tv and go to bed.

Sold!

My house closed on Friday without incident.  It represents the closing of a big chapter of my life.  I'm pretty happy to not be paying the mortgage anymore, but it's still kind of sad.  I thought I'd be in that house a long time, and I put a lot of work into it.  I miss my neighbors, and I miss my garage, but I don't miss mowing the lawn.

Goodbye

Brittany says the new owner has moved in.  I hope she gets along with Titus and Brittany.  I'd hate to leave my favorite neighbors with a bad replacement neighbor.

I really can't thank my friends enough for all the help they gave me prepping the house for sale.  I certainly didn't expect to sell it when I left for the track in April so they had a ton of work to do.  They did it remarkably quickly, and the speed with which it sold is testament to how good a job they did.

Looking Forward

If I don't have anything to look forward to, it makes it really hard to get out of bed in the morning.  Right now, the only thing I actually look forward to is sleep, and the only reason to get up is so I don't pee my pants.

For a while, I had dinner guests every night, but that has slowed to a trickle as I knew it would.  Now, if I have two guests a week, I'm doing pretty well.  For a while, I looked forward to watching TV, but now I have watched about all the TV I care to see.  Now it mostly feels tedious and repetitive.  When I'm watching TV, I keep thinking about how I could be sleeping.  And I keep seeing people on TV doing the things I wish I was doing.  I want to go camping or running.  I want to ride a bicycle.  Of course I can't look forward to any of those things.  Right now, if I can take my trash out to the dumpster, I feel like I have accomplished something.

At some point, I suppose I'm looking forward to a painful and invasive surgery, but there is so much uncertainty about that that it's impossible to look forward to it too much.  I'm not even sure it'll solve any of my problems.  And it might create new ones.

Having nothing to look forward to is making it really hard to do the things I'm supposed to be doing.  Notably my exercise routine.  I don't see any immediate benefit, so what's the point?  In my heart, I know that's a bad mentality, but I just don't care.

So I've decided I need some goals.  If I have something practical I can look forward to, maybe that will give me a reason to get up in the morning.  The goal I keep focusing on is being able to drive and the freedom that comes with it.  I hate asking people whenever I need to go somewhere.  I just want to be able to go where I want.  Right now I'm a shut-in.  It's depressing.  It would do a lot for my outlook if I could just go where I want.

Of course even when I can drive, I still can't go a lot of the places I want because they aren't wheelchair accessible.  I can only get into one friend's house, and that's way back up where I used to live.  I don't see myself getting up there very often.

It occurred to me today that my sleepiness may be caused by the drug I'm taking to try to control my spasms.  The spasms seem a little better, but at what cost?  I may have to decide what's more important, but I can say that the spasms are pretty bad.  The sleepiness makes it really hard to get anything done though.  Makes it hard to write the blog.

In other news, my house should close tomorrow.  That will be a load off my mind, and I can't thank Gus enough for the tremendous amount of help he's given me with that.  He's got all my stuff stored at his house right now, and at some point, I expect to have a yard sale to get rid of a lot of it.  Who wants my awesome coffee table?  It makes me very sad to part with everything I've spent the last 10 years collecting, but I just can't keep it.

Goings On

It's only Tuesday and I'm already exhausted.  It's been a long week.  I'm still taking one day at a time, but the last few have been pretty good.  The next few will be a challenge.

Last Friday, some of my friends threw a party in my apartment.  Gus made his famous ribs and baked beans, and Caitlin brought 7-layer dip, and Kelly made ice cream-cookie sandwiches.  I bought a bunch of beer, and a bunch of people came, and we had a great time.  It was nice to hang out with a bunch of my friends at once.

Jessica, Cullen, me, Titus, Uyen, Gus, and Ben

Brittany was there too

Brian checking out Ben's new phone

Gus showing off his ribs

Buddha Bear was there too

Later, Buddha did some body shots

I was happy my neighbors didn't call the police.

Saturday morning, Gus's family left for Kansas, but my friend Emily used some of her vacation to fly down from Philly and stay with me.  Emily is my cousin's sister-in-law, and happens to be a neurophysiologist who works on a surgical team that does spinal surgeries like the spinal fusion I had.

Emily and I have always gotten along well at family functions because we have similar interests, including the fact that she rides an SV650 like the one I used to race.  Her family owns a dairy farm up in the North Country near where my family's farm is.

Emily

Emily and I had a great time hanging out and watching movies.  She also helped me out with a bunch of things around the house.  Unfortunately, she had to leave this morning (Tuesday), and I'm going to be mostly by myself the rest of the week.  We'll see how that goes.  I know I have people I can call if I need help, but except for dinner Thursday night, nobody actually scheduled to come over.

While Emily was here, we spent some time out on the balcony, and it is definitely starting to feel like Summer is over.  It's not cold outside yet, but there were a couple times when it definitely wasn't hot either.  I'm worried about winter.  It's hard enough to put on gym shorts and a t-shirt by myself.  Emily took me to Target to shop for some long pants, but I haven't tried to put them on yet.  I'm worried about putting them on and getting them off by myself.  If I can't, it's going to be a loooong winter.

Otherwise, things are going okay here.  I'm not sure, but I don't think my HO is getting any worse, and the same for my spasms.  They're still not good though.  I'm starting to think I'm likely to end up with a baclofen pump at some point, but I'll worry about that later.  For now, I'm just going to keep taking things one day at a time and seeing how things go.

Passion

Today I got an email from my buddy, Chris, about his latest motorcycle race.  Here's a video he sent.

WERA Talladega GPR Formula 2 - August 2012

You don't have to watch it.  If you're not a motorcycle racing fan, you might think it's boring.  I find it riveting.  But then again, I spent the last few years devoting myself to becoming as good at this as I could.  Motorcycle racing is the first and only thing I have ever felt truly passionate about.  I could happily live, eat, and breathe motorcycle racing, and talk about it until everyone around me was bored to tears.

It immersed me completely.  Working on the bike, learning to tune it to make it handle better, improving my skills in riding it, analyzing my past performance.  I happily spent all my free time on it.  Now I can't do it anymore, and all the knowledge and skills I acquired seem like a waste.

One thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is whether I'll ever have another passion.  Something that makes me want to stay up late at night and get up early.  Something that makes my pulse quicken just thinking about it.

It's hard to imagine right now what it might be, but I hope I find one eventually.  Life is so much better when you're passionate about something.

Little Help?

Since I got out of the hospital, my friend, Gus, has been completely indispensable to me.  He helps me with everything on a daily basis.  He has helped me sell my house, and a motorcycle.  Currently, he's helping me sell a car, and he comes over for lunch most days and helps with whatever I need.  He keeps me from panicking about the things I can't do for myself, and I literally don't know what I would do without him.

Unfortunately, I'm going to find out what I would do without him the week of September 8th to the 15th.  He's going on vacation to Kansas to hang out with his family.  That's going to leave me all alone, so if you were thinking about coming to visit, that would be a good time.  I need help with stupid stuff like checking my mail and changing my sheets.  And putting my socks on.  It's stupid, but important, and I can't do it myself.

Also from Kansas

And company.  I could use some company.  So think about it.  If you've been thinking about visiting, that week would be a good time.  I'd really appreciate it.