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.

Bored

I am bored today.  Bored bored bored bored bored.  So bored I watched a soccer game.  The whole thing.  Actually, I kinda like soccer, but I still don't find myself watching it on TV very often.  Especially not here at rehab.

Bored

I suspect this is what most of the inmates here feel like most weekends, and if so, I feel really bad for them.  It makes me especially glad that I get as many visitors as I do.  It's hard to appreciate your friends fully until you see what life is like without them.

It's not like I don't have anything that I need to do.  I need to apply for social security disability, I need to transfer money from my bank, I need to talk to my wheelchair dealer, I need to try to plan a trip out to my new apartment, and I need to return a fancy medical boot I ordered.  Unfortunately, since it's Sunday, I can't do any of those things.  All I can do is sit here and wait for Monday when I won't have time to do any of those things.  It's a predicament.  Unfortunately, I have no good solution for it.  Guess I'll go down to Starbucks and think about it over a Mocha Frappuccino.

Car Transfers

Most Saturdays are slow, and today was no different.  I did have one therapy session though, and for that, I had my friend, Buddha Bear, bring his car around so I could practice transferring into and out of a car.  It went really well.  I tried it once using a slide board, but then I tried it in 3 different doors with no board, and they all went really well.  I'm sure it'll be different with a different car, but it was pretty smooth on Buddha's Camry.  I even tried the driver's seat so now I know I can do that when I'm ready to drive.

Buddha Bear wants to take me for ice cream

There are more pictures here.

And some videos:
Jason Car Transfer 1
Jason Car Transfer 2
Jason Car Transfer 3

Corrections

I want to start this blog entry by apologizing to Raheleh for spelling her name wrong for the last 5 weeks.  In my defense, I spelled it like people here pronounce it, and her name is spelled funny.  To atone for my mistake, I am going to spell my own name 'Jehson' for the next month.

I can't read her name tag either.

 I also have to correct myself by telling you that we did not work on wheelies today.  I thought we were supposed to, but we didn't.  I never know what's going on around here.  Today we did more floor transfers.  Now they say Monday for wheelies.

I also have to make a correction that I did not make brownies today.  The schedule got messed up, and it didn't happen.  If you were thinking about visiting this weekend for the brownies, you'd better wait.

Also, my sister didn't visit today.  I don't think I told you she was going to, but I knew, I and I was looking forward to it, but she got a cold and cancelled the trip.  If you're wondering how I like to be visited, getting me sick is low on my list, so I consider this a good call.  Unfortunately, it meant no lunch from Mediterranean Deli.  Fortunately, Mike and Sue saved the day by bringing dinner from there.

Food bearers

I had a very nice evening with Mike and Sue, and then I went to bed.  That does not require any correction.  So until tomorrow, I'll be here in rehab, livin' the dream.

Meow!

Today was the day I've been waiting for.  Today, I got my loaner wheelchair.  After days of teasing me about it, they finally delivered it today.  Unfortunately, it was kindof a disappointment.  It's light.  Much lighter than the chair I've been in, but it still doesn't have enough dump, and I feel like I'm going to fall out the front even more than in the other one.  Also, this one has a fairly nasty pull to the left.  The only good thing about that is that it's going to give me a chance to build up my left arm strength to match my right since I'll be doing twice as many pushes with my left arm.

I'm going to have to take this chair home and use it until they can order my permanent chair.  Delivery could take 6 to 8 weeks.  I could be more excited about that.

Otherwise, my day was pretty good.  I got to practice some more floor transfers in PT.

Getting ready

Checking the distance

Are we seriously doing this?

Prepare to transfer to the stool

Do the transfer to the stool

Start the transfer to the floor

I feel like I made this look really hard

And after the work was done, Titus and Brittany came to visit and brought me food.

Good times!

We hung out until about 10:00 when I finally started working on my blog.

Oh, also, I got to wear my awesome new t-shirt today.  Lookin' good if I do say so myself.  Meow!

It's Occupational!

Occupational therapy teaches you how to do pretty much anything you need to do to live your life.  Specifically, it teaches you how to do things that walkers do.  Around here, they sometimes call normal people 'walkers'.  I find the term offensive, but what can you do?  I can tell you the therapists here uniformly disagree with my use of the word 'cripple', so I guess we're even.

Lately, whenever the therapists ask me to do something a normal person would do, like open a door or push an elevator button, I say, "It's occupational!".  That makes the therapists laugh, and that makes me happy because I like to make people laugh.  It is the little things that keep me going in here.  Lord knows it is not the food.

Speaking of food, Rahalay, my occupational therapist, is going to teach me to make brownies on Friday.  Ghirardelli brownies no less.  Earlier this week, they taught me to make a bed, vacuum a carpet, and do laundry.  All good stuff to know.  All 10 times harder than it is for walkers.  I think the moral of this story is: if you visit me this weekend there very well might be brownies.

It's occupational!

Rahalay threatens to slap me if I mix lights and darks

Replacements

Last week, most of my normal therapists were on vacation so I had to work with some new people.  Getting the crap kicked out of me by strangers highlighted for me the fact that I had become a little too chummy with my regular PT trainers, and had figured out how to trick them into giving me less work.  I always like doing less work, but in this case, doing less work may result in me being less prepared when I have to go do this stuff at home by myself.  So I told my PT trainers that.  The result was predictable.  They have been working me like a dog all week.

The lazy part of me misses the good old days of telling jokes to avoid exercise, but the practical part of me knows it's for the best.

Yesterday, Emily made me try a floor transfer.  I transferred from one of the bench/beds in the gym to a step stool to the floor and back up.  It was REALLY hard.  I wish I had a picture for you, but I don't.  It's not the hardest thing I'm going to have to learn how to do, but it was really scary.  You have to really commit to it which makes it possible to screw it up.  If I screw it up, I could fall and hurt myself, but when I get home, if I fall out of my chair, I'm going to have to know how to get back up.  Here's a video of a guy doing exactly that.

Doesn't that look hard?  I think so.  I'm scared to learn it, but also excited.  I feel like if I can do this, I can do anything.  It just remains to be seen whether I can do it.

I also want to take a moment to point out how skinny this guy's legs are.  He can practically wrap a hand around his thigh.

For my entire life, whenever I decided to do exercise, I would invariably choose something that works one of the largest muscle groups: the legs.  Something like running or biking.  As a result, I have big, powerful legs that no longer work.  And I have to move around with my weakling upper-body.  I have put my eggs in the wrong basket, and I'm really looking forward to my legs atrophying and becoming more manageable.  I hope it doesn't take too long.