**it happens, what happens next is up to you

** It Happens

I met a very interesting young man yesterday.  5 years ago  when he was 18 years old he broke his neck while he was wrestling with a friend ( he was quarterback of his football team, track star and on the swim team). He is permanently  in a wheel chair, but it doesn’t seem to hinder him in the least.  He came back to the floor and all the nurses were hugging him.  He is just a great young man.  He has gone to college, he is taking marketing and he is going to graduate soon.  He is from Sarnia and his community raised 200 000+ to build him a house and purchase a vehicle. He now says it is time to payback. So he has started a company selling t- shirts that say ** it happens on the front and on the back it says what happens next is up to you. He has a web site www.whathappensnext.ca which will be up and running soon. You will be able to purchase the t-shirts on-line and the proceeds go to the Rick Hanson Foundation.  He is also an inspirational speaker and he met Rick Hanson in Sarnia and  rick invited him to BC to be at the finish of the many in motion relay he is currently.  His name is Dan Edwards.

Its been sort of a catch 22 week.  First I was told I was out on the 22^nd of December, and then Darcy met with the director and the decision could be make at the team meeting on Thursday.  Since I am having the surgery on my knee on January 19^th my release day will be Jan. 19.  If the surgery is canceled my release date will be Jan 12^th. All good news.  His becomes a bit of a catch 22 as after the surgery they may bring me back here for more rehab as hopefully I will be able to stand on my left leg as it is my understanding for knee replacements they have you weight baring the day after surgery.  That will be interesting.  I have been up in the sling suspended from the lift every day this week putting weight on my right leg and I was up for more than 10 minutes on Friday.  I am getting over the nausea and the dizziness while standing, I never realized how heavy I was or how tall I was even though I only weigh 164 pounds.  I am still riding the bike for half hour a day and my left leg is still doing 30% of the work. In OT, they are working my right arm a lot with a weight program. And I have increased the weight  3 times since I have started, in the beginning of November. 

The catch 22 in all of this is when they replace my knee will I be up in walking or be able to stand? Will I need a wheel chair, will I need a lift will I need a hospital bed or will I need manual wheel chair? If we leave it too long and I need all of those things they may not be available if I am released at the end of January.  The plan may be after my surgery to bring me back in for rehab on my leg. And get me standing or walking or whatever is going to happen. Now that I am going to be here over Christmas, all my friends will be leaving. Which will be a little sad because they have become very close friends.  The other unknowns are I don’t know what is going to happen when I get to university hospital for my knee surgery.  As here at parkwood, as I probably mentioned before they have bowel care, which I get a depository and then they lift me into a commode, I don’t know what will happen at  UH, If I don’t have a depository and I have to use a bed pan,…it will be an interesting 4 or 5 days.  I am looking forward to the surgery as supposedly it will remove all the pain from my knee. At least after the surgery pain is gone, and I am assuming they will give me enough medication to help.  The good news is I am decreasing the pain killers I am on here.  I get 9 mg of long lasting dilodid (hydro morph)  and I get 6 more mg at 8 at night. In between I am allowed 2mg  every 2 hours as required.  I haven’t had an additional pain killer since lst Wednesday.   I have a had a few withdrawal symptoms, and they are quite strange.  My forehead goes numb, and then eyelids, so it looks like I am really tired and my eyes start to water, and my ears go numb and the back of my head goes numb…I’m pretty sure it is with drawl symptoms  because when it first started if I took 2mg they would go away.

I was outside for the first time in my wheelchair and went to look at wheelchairs and commodes I went in a wheelchair accessible taxi, with was a dodge van that you enter from the back.  It seems the opening in the back is only 49 inches high and sitting in the wheel chair I am 53. So it was an interesting ride, having to lean forward to get in and keep bent over for the whole ride…good thing it was only 10 minutes.  On the way back they had lowered my seat in my wheelchair by about 2 half inches which wasn’t quite enough  and I forgot to duck and I wacked my head getting in to the van.

 as many or some of you may know I am very claustrophobic, and I have been working on that and I was able to get into the van without any problem. Before this incident I would never had gone in the back of a van in a wheel chair, I have had come counseling and I am on some medication which seems to have relieved my claustrophobia. Because I am now able to ride on elevators, and go into small spaces. Seems I was very good at hiding my claustrophobia, I wouldn’t go in elevators as I said I needed the exercise and I always drove my car so there was never a chance of me having to sit in the back seat.  And I would even have difficulty sitting on the inside of a both, and I would get out of that one by saying I would have to go for a pee.

Physio and OT say that I am continuing to improve. My left arm is now moving more.  It needs to go a lot further but it is improving. So with my extension to jan 19 I will continue to have therapy.  One of the tough things here is listening to patients in other rooms crying for help you just feel so badly for them. And there is nothing you can do for them.  But it is great to see people improve from not being able to stand to walking with a walker and sometimes unassisted. As you can see their  daily improvement,  which is motivation for me.

Thanks to the sarge they worked me like a rented mule.