Control

For some reason beyond my ability to comprehend, I find it easy to maintain a positive attitude about the things I can do something about.  I may not be able to fix my legs, but I can learn to work around the problem to the best of my ability.  I find it much harder to stay positive about things I can't control, and I think that for me, losing that control is the worst thing about this injury.

One of the things you do in rehab is train your bodily functions to operate in a certain, predictable way.  You use drugs and routine to suggest that your body do certain things at certain times and not when you don't want it to.  Unfortunately, you can't force your body to respond.  You have to coax it and hope for the best.  So far, my results have been mixed, and it is becoming a source of extreme frustration for me.  Even when you think you've got it working right, you're never entirely sure.

In the case of my paralysis, I can fight by getting stronger and learning to do better transfers or ride the wheelchair better.  The path to improvement is obvious.  In the case of my body, the best I can do is try a new schedule or a new medication and see what happens.  This leaves no obvious end in sight for these problems.  All I can do is hope that one day I'll get it figured out.  I guess if it wasn't for this, I'd be enjoying rehab a bit too much.