Just the Facts

It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Sometimes this blog feels like work, and this is one of those times.  Here's what happened.  I had an experience that really deserved a thorough write-up on the blog, so I wanted to wait until I could really write it up properly.  I wanted to have time to get my ideas organized, and then make it entertaining, and then edit it until it felt good.  But before I got around to it, something else happened that also deserved a detailed retelling.  And then I was putting off twice as much work when the next thing happened, and now I find that I have about 5 or 6 things that I want to write about in detail, and there is no way that's going to happen.

So I'm just going to hit the bullet points so I can get caught up.  I'm short-changing my readers, but as Evelyn says, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."

New Friend

A couple weeks ago, I met a guy who lives about 45 minutes north of here, who has almost the same exact injury that I have.  He was injured falling off a ladder less than a month after I had my injury (on my birthday no less).  He also has HO, and we have talked on Skype a couple times, and we also met in person at the SCI BBQ.

His name is Jarrad, and it's nice to know someone in such a similar situation.

Cripple Picnic

The North Carolina Spinal Cord Injury Association had their annual Fall BBQ on Saturday, October 5th.  Gus and Uyen were able to take me.  It was a lot of fun.  It was the first time I was able to go to one of their events since I was in rehab.  I met a bunch of people with different levels of injury, including Jarrad.  There was one 24-year-old guy there who was a quad, and had very little use of his hands, but he was still pushing a manual wheelchair, and was able to drive, and was working full-time, and made me feel generally pretty bad about what I'm not yet able to do.

Before the BBQ

When we arrived, and before the BBQ started, Uyen wanted me to pose for a picture.  I thought that was silly, but I obliged.  I figured I'd take a bunch of pictures once the party started.  As it happens, I forgot to take any pictures, so it's good I have that one.

Another thing I learned is that, in spite of what I had been told (repeatedly and recently), I do have to go to the DMV and get an endorsement on my license to drive with hand controls.

Egg Project

I spent a couple hours one day making 6 omelets to freeze.  It's important for me to eat enough protein to avoid skin breakdown, and they tell me eggs are the best source.  I learned how to make them when my mom was here, and I learned that they freeze and reheat pretty well.

Finished product

The mess

I'm really delighted with how they turned out, and I'm looking forward to a week of delicious breakfasts.

Hand Cycle Clinic

The NCSCIA held their biannual hand cycle clinic last Friday.  I've been wanting to try out hand cycling again for a long time, and I finally got to try it out.  It was challenging to find a ride, and I almost didn't get to go, but Brittany was able to come pick me up and take me.  It was a lot of fun, but I'm definitely not in shape to do much of it.  I rode for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and when I was done, I thought I was going to die.  It didn't help that I tried to get cute on the first of my 2 laps and did it in a higher gear than maybe I should have.  I almost couldn't finish the second lap.  I looked really good on that first lap though.

The only (terrible) picture I took at the clinic

What I learned about hand cycles is that they are extremely hard to pedal, even harder to steer, and if you get up any speed, they'll tip over in a heartbeat.  I didn't crash one, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that they aren't terribly stable in a turn.  Still, I may end up with one of these one day.  There aren't a lot of ways for a paraplegic to do cardio.

Visit With Titus and Brittany

After the clinic, I did some shopping with Brittany, and then I had dinner with her and Titus up in my old neighborhood.  I hadn't seen those guys in a while, and I got an extremely pleasant surprise.  Titus's brother David, and his wife Brianna, who are also friends of mine, just moved back to Raleigh from Texas, so they came to dinner, and now I have more friends in the area.  Hooray!

New Heel Sore

I've been dealing with a pressure sore on my heel since my last surgery.  It hasn't been fun.  On Monday, I discovered that I've got another one right next to the first one on the same heel.  I got this one just from sleeping.  I've been wearing the boots to protect my heels, but apparently they don't work properly in the position I like to sleep in.  It's very upsetting.  As easy as it is to get these things, and as long as it takes them to heal, I'm thinking that I will always have them for the rest of my life. 

My bones trying to escape

New Haircut

Uyen's sister, Dianne, has been in town for a week or so, and she is a cosmetologist, so she came over last week and gave me a haircut.  It's a good haircut, and it was free, so I'm happy.  My hair is dirty most of the time, and the longer it is, the nastier that feels, so it's really nice to have short hair right now.

Surgery Recovery

I guess I'm just about recovered from that last surgery.  I definitely have a lot more range of motion than I had before the surgery.  I'm not sure I have as much as I want though.  I haven't really done any testing of my range of motion because the surgeon told me not to.  They don't know for sure, but they suspect that stretching may encourage HO to regrow, especially in the weeks after surgery.

So I've been trying to baby my right hip.  Just from daily use, I know it bends farther, but it still hurts to bend it very far, so I'm not sure what to do about that.

I'm supposed to do some outpatient rehab on it, but I really need to start driving because nobody I know is going to be able to give me rides for all the rehab I need to do.  So I'm not entirely sure how we're going to proceed on that front.  There has been some talk of getting a PT to come to my apartment and help me work on car transfers.  That would be a good start.  I should probably try to start that sooner rather than later.

The End

And now I'm going to bed.  I have to wake up early tomorrow to go to the wheelchair store and get some new brakes installed on my chair.  My old brakes barely work anymore, and I'm hoping these new brakes make my life a lot easier.  We'll see.

Lap Tray

I write this blog mostly for my friends and family to keep them updated on my progress so I don't have to field constant questions from everyone I know.  I do it because I'm lazy.

But recently, I've been contacted by a couple paras who are interested in things I might know.  And in the year and a half that I've been doing this, I've learned a few things that might be helpful to other people, so from time to time I'm going to write about them.  If you know me, you already know about most of this stuff, so feel free to skip these if you want.  You won't miss much.

When I was in rehab, my OT (Raheleh, if you're a long-time reader) was pretty adamant that I should avoid using tools whenever possible.  I think her attitude was that if I learn to do something by using a tool, it will be very difficult to ever learn to do that thing without that tool.  The less tools you need, the more independent you'll be.

I think that's a good theory, and I agree with it in principle, but tool use is what separates us from the animals, and our entire society is built on the use of tools, so why shouldn't we participate?  We should, and I do.

The tool I use far more than any other is my lap tray.  I literally do not know how I could survive without it.  I suspect I would starve to death.

The reality of being in a manual wheelchair is that you need both hands to move.  If you're holding something in one hand, the most you can hope to do is go in a circle.  Realistically, you can't even go a few feet holding one thing.  If that thing is easily spillable, or if, God forbid, you have TWO things, you're completely stuck.  And don't even get me started about slight inclines.

So if you want to move anything from one place to another, you have to put it in the only place available to you: your lap.  This is okay if the thing you're transporting is not easily spilled.  A closed water bottle can be braced between your thighs, but remember that you cannot use your thighs to squeeze the item, nor can you feel when it starts to fall over, so this can still be tricky.  And what if the item is hot and spillable?  This would be extremely dangerous with an open mug of hot coffee.

What if you want to move a plate of food?  You might be able to balance the plate on one of your thighs, but that's going to be pretty precarious, and your thigh is pretty slippery.  What if the plate is hot?  What if your thighs aren't level?

Depending on how you sit in your wheelchair, your thighs may slope forward or back.  Due to my HO, for a long time I couldn't sit upright in my chair, and I was slouched down.  My thighs sloped down toward the knee fairly dramatically, so anything I put on my lap would slide immediately onto the floor.

These are very serious problems that you never think about until you get yourself paralyzed.  So how do we solve it?  My solution is a lap tray.

I developed my solution over several months with help from Gus.  I will spare you the design progression.  I think it's interesting, but this post is already pretty long.  I'm not sure the tray is perfect yet, but it's pretty good.

The finished product

I wanted something with sides that were tall to help prevent things from falling off, and that could contain a small spill if one occurred in transit.  I found a tray I liked at Target, but the top surface was slippery, and anything I put on it would slide all over the place.  Because my lap was sloped downward, that meant it would slide to the front of the tray and cause the tray to fall off my lap.  The bottom of the tray was also quite slippery, so the whole tray slid off my lap quite easily.

To solve the first problem, I sanded the top surface of the tray with 400 grit sandpaper and then sprayed it with a product called Plasti Dip.  It's a rubberized coating that you spray on tool handles to protect them and make them grippy.  You can get it at the hardware store near the spray paint I believe.  This created a nice smooth grippy surface that dishes won't slide on.  It's also pretty easy to wipe up.

Some of the things I used to modify my lap tray

Next, I needed to level the tray on my lap.  I did this with shim sticks.  Gus actually made them for me.  At most major hardware stores, you can buy fancy poplar boards 2-1/2" inches wide in a variety of thicknesses from 1/4" up to 1".  Gus used these to create a selection of shim sticks for me so I can change them out to adjust the angle of the tray.  This was especially important when the HO was bad because I slouched down in the chair a different amount on different days.  We cut the boards 15" long, and made them out of poplar because it's lightweight.  Gus sanded them and put a couple coats of polyurethane on them to keep me from getting splinters.  He also stained them to make them look pretty.

I only really use the first 3 or 4 sizes between 1/4" and 1" thick

The finished boards will level the tray, but they are still pretty slippery, so I used some self-adhesive rubber weather stripping to create a grip strip on each board that won't slide on my leg.  I don't trust the adhesive on the strips so I also hit each strip with a staple gun to make sure it can't fall off.

I attach the boards to the bottom of the tray using industrial strength Velcro.  I used to use this stuff to attach my lap timer to my race motorcycle, and it is STRONG.  You can get it at a hardware store or probably Walmart.

Put the soft side of the velcro on the tray so it doesn't stick to your pants if you don't use a shim stick

The only thing I'm not crazy about on the tray is the Plasti Dip coating on the inside.  It nicks easily and will start to peel off in sections.  It's really not much of a problem, and when it gets bad enough, you can just peel the rest off and respray.  It peels off pretty easily if you pick at it.  I would prefer a more permanent solution, but this works well enough until I think of something better.

So that's my tray.  It's how I get food from the kitchen to the dining room every day.  I love it and I honestly don't know what I'd do without it.