Today I’m just going to go totally random.
One saying that I never really liked, but like it even less since my accident is, “it could be worse”. Yes, it can always be worse but when your at your lowest hearing that you could be lower is no consultation. Also, being in the rehab environment actually knowing and being friends with people that are worse, that phrase hits home in a whole different kind of way.
I thought it was funny when people would say, “keep your head up” while I had my halo on. Well, with the halo on I didn’t really have a choice.
After waking up from my surgery, I told my brother to take a picture of me with my halo on for my album cover. I was trying to help him relax plus I wanted to be like Kanye and head bob through the halo.
At Carolinas Medical they almost put me on a ventilator by accident! Yeah by accident! The nurse put the feeding tube in my bronchial. I told him several times that the placement was wrong and he just brushed me off. As time passed and my breathing deteriorated, the nurse gets a call. It’s the doctor who finally reviewed my chest x-ray yelling get that tube out its in his bronchial!
Oh I have one more CMC debacle, because they didn’t do a bowel program on me for several days, I ended up with a blockage. There were several test, scans, talks of removing intestines and colostomy bags! Luckily it was cleared before they did some real damage.
I have more bad CMC stories but I’ll go on to the positives. I will always love both my main PTs and OTs from inpatient and outpatient. They have always worked hard, worked me hard and always advocated for me when my doctors were off the mark/rocker. Quick shout out to Jeni, Kara, Ryan and Ashley! I also had a couple of good nurses.
Argh! I think I burnt my forehead again! Sun block is super important for a quads (face, head and knees). Your knees are super exposed in the chair and not being able to feel the temp you’ll burn those knees up before you know it.
Seriously, if you have a question just ask me. If you don’t want to do it publicly inbox me. No question is too crazy or stupid, I do reserve the right not to answer the too crazy ones, lol.
Oooh, here is a good one! BEING IN A POWER CHAIR IS NOT A SIGN OF MENTAL DISABILITY! You would not believe how many times people have talked over me to my wife or who ever I was with like I was incapable of having a conversation. I’ve even had people talk to me all slow and stuff. I’m willing to bet that the majority of power chair users are not suffering from anything that affects the mind but from things like SCI, MS, Cerebral Palsy, etc.
I like to call my power chair my electric chair. Other quads think that’s funny because they no its torture, lol.
Those to little round scars on my forehead and on the back of my head are where the halo pins went in. Luckily my scars aren’t bad. Actually, the scars from both of my spinal cord surgeries healed real well.
If you are like me prior to my accident, you thought that people in wheel chairs just couldn’t walk. Well, it’s often much more complicated than that. If the person is a spinal cord injury victim then it’s a good chance that they do not have bowel or bladder function. Often after the dust settles the bladder/bowel issues can be just as bad or even more devastating than the inability to walk.
Music helped keep my sanity while I was in the hospital. When you leave inpatient at Shepherd it’s like a graduation and they give you superlatives and everything. One of my superlatives was best musical taste. You could come to my room an hear a range of music from Carlos Nakai, Curtis Mayfield on down to Jay Z.
When I first got hurt I was devastated when I heard the nurse tell my parents I would never walk again. Little did I know that wasn’t even the worst of it. I had come to terms with not walking and pictured myself getting out the hospital pushing around in a manual chair being an otherwise normal person. Once you start figuring out that’s not the case and reality starts to set in, that’s when things get rough.
I wonder what my life would be like right now if I didn’t have this accident.
It’s hard to watch others take care of your kids and your household. It’s not that people are doing it wrong all the time I just want to do things my way myself. So if I seem to be in a bad mood don’t take it personal I’m just frustrated.