Fun

Lately, I've been lucky enough to have some fun, and I guess I should tell you about it.

One of the bad things about being stuck in a wheelchair is that I can't get into most of my friends' houses.  It turns out that most houses require you to navigate at least one or two stairs to get in.  That's not really an option for me.  Fortunately, last weekend, Gus built a ramp over his garage stairs so I can get in.

It's kinda steep

The ramp is a little on the steep side, so I need a big push to get up, and coming down is pretty exciting, but at least I can get in.  So last Monday, I went over and had pizza and watched Monday Night Football.  It was pretty fun to get a change of scenery.  Also, Rosati's pizza is pretty good.

Watching football on a different couch

Last week, I went looking for somebody who wanted to see Argo in the theater with me, and Andy agreed, so we did that Saturday.  That was fun, but also on Saturday, I got a call from my brother-in-law.  It turns out this weekend was the Martinsville NASCAR race.  I had lost track of the date, but for the last 12 years, twice a year, whenever NASCAR races at Martinsville, I have gone up to Hillsville, VA to meet up with a group of friends from all over the east coast and waste several days drinking and wasting time.  Anyway, the Martinsville group decided that they wanted to waste their Saturday by driving 3.5 hours one-way to hang out with me for a few hours, and then drive 3.5 hours back.  So that's what they did.

Mark T., Matt, Curt, and Chris

Jon and Rocco

We spent some time hanging out in my apartment, and then we went to the wing place near my apartment.  I had a great time, and it made me wish I was going with them back to the cabin, but I had a great time hanging out with those guys.  It was easily the most fun I had this week.

So I've had a pretty fun week, and I thought I'd share.  Hopefully this week will be good too.

Mark B. and Mark T.

Surgery News

Once again it's Sunday night, and I find myself waiting for the late game to start.  Bengals at Steelers.  Probably won't be a great game. In the meantime, I'll tell you about my appointment with the surgeon while I wait.

On Thursday, I finally met with Dr. Dahners about my HO surgery.  I was expecting him to tell me to come back in 3 more months for another CT scan, but he basically just asked me when I wanted to have the surgery.  He said I could do it as early as November, but after thinking about it, I told him January.  I wanted to wait until after the holidays.

Then he sent me for some blood tests.  I got a call on Friday telling me the chemical that indicates conditions are right for bone creation were too high, and that January is the earliest they could try the surgery, but they'll have to test me again and see if the levels are low enough then.  So maybe I'm having the surgery in January and maybe I'm not.  We'll see.

I learned some stuff about the surgery.  Dr. Dahners said he looked at the CT scan and I've got a lot of extra bone in my hips.  The bone in front of the hips is blocking my movement.  He said they will have to do one hip at a time in two separate surgeries.  He said I'll lose a lot of blood, and they don't want to give me a blood transfusion because it increases the risk.

He said they won't be able to remove all of the bone, but they can get a lot of it and I should get some of my range of movement back.  I don't know how much.  We'll see.

I will probably be in the hospital about 3 days after each surgery, and the time between the surgeries will depend largely on how well I recover.  Best case would be one month, worst case would be "several months" which I interpret as 3 months.  Again, we'll see.

I'm hoping they'll put me back in rehab for a while after the surgeries, but I expect I'll be pretty injured afterward, so I'll probably need a lot of help until I get better.  I'm hoping I can still count on my friends during that time, and I think my family will probably make time to come help me.  I think it's likely to be unpleasant.

Either way, I hope we can get this party started sooner rather than later.  I'm ready to get my flexibility back.

Escapism

My life here is mostly boring and repetitive, and when it isn't, it's extremely stressful.  I look forward to every break I get from it.  Recently, my favorite escape, and the thing I look forward to the most every week is football.  It's something I can do alone, and I can happily sit on the couch all day and watch.  The Hokies aren't very good this year, but I don't care.  There are other good teams to watch, and I'd rather watch the Hokies lose than do just about anything else.

For the first time, I've also really developed a love for the NFL.  I especially enjoy watching the Ravens.  Not just because I'm from Baltimore.  I really enjoy the way they play the game when they're playing well.  The Chicago Bears are also fun to watch this year.  I love watching good defense.

Apart from football, I've been starting to go a little stir crazy lately.  I've hardly left my apartment since I got here in June, and it's starting to wear on me.  The fact is I'm scared to go very far from home.  Here in my apartment, I have access to everything I need, and I know I can handle just about any situation that might arise.  When I leave home, I have no control over the environment, and if something goes wrong, I have few options.

That said, I don't want to be a shut-in so I've decided to try to accept more invitations and get out more.  I mentioned in a previous post that I went with Mike and Sue to Trivia Night at the bar.  We finished 4th.  I'd like to do more short trips like that.

Gus and Uyen invited me to go to the state fair with them this week.  Initially, I told them I didn't think I'd enjoy that, but later I decided I should try it.  I'm so glad I did.  It worked out that my sister was in town that day with my nephew to pick up some of my furniture, and the weather was perfect.  I had a great great time.  Maybe the best time I've had since I've been out of the hospital.

Funnel cake is the only real reason to go to the fair

The kids had fun, and I got to eat a whole ton of fair food.  It felt good to be out in public, but it was also very comforting to have the right people with me.  It was also nice to see my nephew.

Out in public

This was my most ambitious excursion yet, and it was a huge success.  Here are the rest of the pictures.

My mom wants me to travel up to Danville, VA to my sister's house for Thanksgiving.  I have some serious concerns about that.  I'm worried that I'm going to end up spending a lot of time in the wheelchair which will be painful, and that it will be difficult to do the program when I'm up there.  I already know their bathroom door is barely wide enough for my wheelchair.  Then, after the program, I need to get on a bed to put my pants on.  I don't know if the bed they have will be easy to transfer to and from.  I think Gus is going to drive me up for a short visit so we can investigate the facility before Thanksgiving, but it looks like that's where I'll be for Turkey Day.  I don't know what I'm worried about.  What's the worst that can happen, right?  Of course the answer, as always, is that I could poop my pants in front of everyone I know.  That's pretty much always the answer to that question.  We'll see what happens.

Catching Up

The longer I go without writing, the more pressure I feel to write a long post, so it becomes a daunting prospect to write everything I think I should.  But I have to do it sometime so here we go.

I'm starting to get into a bit of a routine.  Pretty much every day, I know at just about every given moment what I'm supposed to be doing.  I suppose that's a good thing, and it cuts down my stress level, but I feel like my life is on pause.  I'm just waiting for something to change.

People that know me well know that I have a poor memory, and I'm already starting to forget what life was like before the injury.  I haven't had any dreams about walking lately.  I guess that's a good thing.

Work is going about as well as I could.  I'm still working 3 hours a day, and I think it's getting easier.  I'm still glad I'm doing it.  It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something.  It's about the only time I feel useful.

Gus continues to make himself indispensable.  Last weekend, we took my van over to his house to do a little work on it.  I really appreciate that, but it's frustrating to watch him do work that I used to be perfectly capable of doing myself.  Makes me feel useless.

This morning, Gus had a garage sale for some of my stuff that I don't need anymore.  I didn't go this morning, but I was over there last night putting prices on stuff.  I'm curious to hear how it went.

The HO continues to be a huge problem, but I'm getting accustomed to it.  I've kindof accepted that there are things I can do and things I can't do.  I hope the surgery fixes me eventually, but I've got a system to cope with the things I can't do.  Most of the time I have to depend on Gus for that, but at least I've got Gus.

Speaking of that, I meet with the orthopedic surgeon on the 18th so maybe I'll have some news around then.  I suspect that they're just going to tell me to wait a few more months and we'll talk again then.  The longer I'm out of the hospital, the less I'm looking forward to a big surgery.  I don't really enjoy pain all that much.

I've been trying to get out of the house a little more, and I've had a few opportunities since the last time I wrote.  Mike and Sue took me to trivia night at a wing place, and I got to go to a couple restaurants outside my neighborhood.  I've also been to Gus's house a couple times although I can still only get into the garage and the basement.  It's a nice change of pace though.

I guess that's about all I want to write right now.  This post was all over the place, but hopefully it will hold you for a little while.  Now I'm going back to watching Virginia Tech try to lose a football game to Duke.