Back by Popular Demand

I want you all to know how much it hurts me to write a title like that. There are so many titles that I wanted to put on this entry: "Mobility re-un-dis-enabled", "The Lifestyles of the Rich and Mobile", "Wheeling and Dealing", "Not-so-quadriplegic"... The list goes on. But since so many of you have been asking, begging, pleading, etc. for another blog entry, I have had to settle with the cliche and boring "Back by Popular Demand." When I left rehab, they cut my medication in half to avoid developing a drug dependency. I am just trying to cut back on my writing so that you don't get addicted to me!

I think that is my best excuse yet. My neighbor, Karen, pestered me about a blog entry at church. My excuse to her was that nothing blog-worthy had happened. "What would I write?" I asked. "Today I went to school. Today I went to school. Today, I went to school..." However, that excuse doesn't work anymore because I definitely have blog-worthy news to share.

My appearance on KUTV has been hard to beat. Last time I checked the video was no longer available from their site. I am going to start working on the cameraman to see if I can get some footage from him. If I do I will post the news stories on the blog for your viewing pleasure. Or maybe I can just get the last news story from one of my neighbors TiVo's.

I got home from school after a long day on Monday. And I mean long. It was 9:00pm when I got home. We submitted a paper to the American Conference on Control, which hopefully justifies the lateness of my stay. When I got home I found a surprise waiting for me: homemade apple fritters. Then Wendy told me my left foot accelerator had come. So after eating some apple fritters, I opened up the box. As exciting as it was to get the pedal and as excited as I was to be able to drive, the pedal itself was not too exciting. Just a $400 hunk of metal. Since it was so late that night, we decided to wait until the next day (Tuesday) to give it a try. But it was not to be.

Tuesday morning we were practically awakened by the Fedex man. I say practically because the girls had woken us some time before that, but we were still in bed when he came. He told Wendy that he had been stranded on a desert island and had found no use for our package. That was lucky for me because it was my wheelchair. Since I had therapy that morning, I decided, much to Wendy's dismay, to assemble the thing and pack it, along with my walker and the girls' bikes, into the trunk of the car to head to therapy. Suffice it to say that we were somewhat not on time and the trunk was just a little bit not empty. I didn't drive because we were so busy packing up mobility devices that we didn't have time to figure out the pedal.

Rehab was pretty typical, except that Shane told me he noticed some progress in my right quad. Nothing earth shattering, just a little more control in the contractions. That was good news for me since I can't tell any difference from day to day. It was comforting to know that each day I become less of a "QUAD-riplegic" (had to make sure you got the connection with the title). I have to admit that I walk a little easier lately. I can stand for longer periods of time (I was at my white board for well over an hour the other day working on a problem), I can walk further, faster, and I feel more stable. Now, I still can't kick a soccer ball (footnote: I can and do kick a soccer ball with my left leg while holding onto my walker. It has become an outlet of sorts and I go up to the IMPACT lab frequently to kick the ball around with whoever is there), but I have enough quad to somewhat stablilize my knee in an upright position. The biggest thing is that there is still progress, even though it is slow.

After therapy, Shane, my therapist, took my wheelchair apart and put it back together. Things just weren't adjusted quite like he wanted them. Of course, they were adjusted how he told me to request them when I placed the order so I think he just wanted to play. He might have been more excited than I was. I can only hope he breaks his back someday so that he can enjoy a legitimate wheelchair of his own (what a terrible thing to say... there... I said it so you won't have to).

Once my wheelchair was reassembled I gave it a spin. It was AWESOME. Really comfortable. Drives like a dream. Actually, since I have been on campus I have become pretty adept at nagivating a wheelchair. I've got some sweet moves to put it plainly. It was fun to cruise around and pop wheelies. Then I realized that I didn't have my anti-tippers on. I didn't fall over so no worries, I just decided to save the wheelies. My antics certainly didn't go unnoticed however. The therapists seemed nervous that I was so excited to get off my walker and into the wheelchair (which I admit does seem to be the wrong direction) and some of the senior therapy residents looked downright concerned for my well-being (ok, I might be exaggerating there). Although I mostly use the walker, the wheelchair has been very convenient for long distances and as a comfortable chair (long-distance sitting still hurts). People sometimes ask me why I use the wheelchair when they see me in it. I tell them that if you are going from sitting to sitting, it is easiest and most comfortable to bring your favorite chair with you. Anyway, both devices are helpful in different situations and I find that when I get tired from standing it is nice to sit down and when I get tired of sitting it is nice to be able to stand up.

Well, that pretty well sums up my adventures. Tomorrow we submit the final journal version of the paper we submitted to the ACC and I have to give a research presentation. Other than that, my life is pretty routine: class, homework, research, preparing for the GRE and PhD programs, etc. I have started doing Scouts again. I am actually enjoying that. I think the Scouts are happy to have me back, which I don't really understand since I don't move much and they were in great hands while I was out of comission. But I guess we all appreciate getting back to our routine. We are creatures of habit, and when we break that habit, we quickly find that we will end up "back by popular demand" (what am I doing in math, it is clear I should be a writer :).