Hey all! Today I was featured in a little article in the State Journal-Register, Illinois' main non-chitown news rag. You can find the online version here. Quite the dandy feature, and no offense to the skilled and decidedly entertaining author (should write an article about himself!), but I feel bad not clarifying the occasional ambiguity that might have you scratching your head - particularly if you're one of the few who has kept up with the blog. This also a convenient opportunity for some elaboration. Here goes:
--The car accident was in 2004, the second winter after high school graduation in spring 2003 (and yes, the secret's out, I was the valedictator).
--Ha ha, yes, I did officially name my kitty 289, but he goes by Tommy, as it's a bit more feline-recognizable. Why 289? Well, 17 is irrationally one of my favorite numbers (quite rationally, actually), and 289 is 17 squared. There you go. Nerd alert.
--One of my friends pointed out that the article's wording seems to imply that during the stem cell surgery, they accessed the stem cells in my nose by going up through my neck. eek! The surgery was basically a three-step process once I was in the operating room. First, they opened my neck to inspect and prepare the spinal cord lesion site. Then they left my neck alone and went up through my right nostril to harvest cells from deep in the nasal cavity. Finally, after preparing these cells from my nose, they went back to my neck to transplant the cells at the cleaned-up injury site.
--Just for clarification, I was in Portugal April 7-21, and the surgery took place on the 11th. I was then in Detroit from May 5 through December 18.
--I play (non-bass) guitar lap-style, using splints on both hands to push on the strings like some bizarro piano. Upon returning from Detroit, though, I put just the lowest and highest strings on my favorite bass, such that I can hold it normally and sort of play it that way, splint-free. Maybe there will be pictures sometime.
--Musicians mentioned: Les Claypool, Victor Wooten, Bootsy Collins, Buckethead (and my Bucket concert experience). Too bad you can't put hyperlinks in the newspaper! Also, be on the lookout for more music-themed posts in the near future.
Anyway, xlnt article. Thanks to the SJ-R, and to you for reading both there and here. Rock it.
23 January 2009
21 January 2009
demijour
Twelve hours straight in the manual chair (let's call this one "manuelita") today. hrrrg.
Little else to report. Ding!
Little else to report. Ding!
09 January 2009
nothere
Howdy folks! End "holiday" hiatus.
The biggest deal to report is that I'm back in cville for what will probably equal winter hibernation. It won't be therapy hibernation (rehabernation?), though - there are all sorts of activities/exercises we can improv here, including short and long sit, prone and supine "mat" (= bed) work, weight training with stretchy theraband resistance material, a zillion occutherapy/ADL tasks... Et cetera, et cetera.
In fact, it might be easier to look at what I can't do here, due to a lack of people or equipment. Obviously I won't be cooking with Giger; sadface, I'm one of the few who actually like that machine. No Wave either. There will be e-stim biking - until insurance shells out for a bike of my own, some awesome family friends in town offered to let me visit and use theirs. Note to insurance: this does not mean I should not get one. The only significant logistic limitation is that there are just two other people here, so exercises that require more assistance, e.g. some short sit stuff and the "bicycle" supine abdominal work, aren't going to happen. (Also, just to torment the docs, therapists, and others who so vehemently oppose that I should do any weight bearing, I'd like to point out that our friends have a standing frame as well. Mwa ha ha ha.)
Ergo, it's no internationally-reknowned SCI recovery facility here Bei Link, but there's plenty to be done.
All that said, my most important workout has been something else completely. Knowing that I'm waiting so anxiously to get my own manual chair and ditch the electrowheels, another client at the CSCIR very very VERY generously gave me a fully-customized spare chair that he had at home taking up space, serving as a coat rack. WOW. Despite that it's built for someone quite less gigantic than I, it is absolutely fantastic. Thus, my main therapeutic activity has been spending as much time as possible in this thing. I shall not dance around the fact: this is hard! Size has nothing to do with difficulty, either. I'm used to lounging around in the rolling La-Z-Boy, so spending even just an hour or two en manuel, sitting up perfectly and trying to push around my severely-sloped room with standard unmodified rims, is work work work. That's the idea, though. My back/shoulder/neck muscles scream and the pain meds flow, but each day seems to be ever-so-slightly easier. I can actually sit at my desk, rather than sideways next to it, for the first time in years. Hrrrrg!
Hmmm. Otherwise, various entertainment. Visits to family and from schoolpals; smiles. Slowly re-ripping the music collection to FLAC. "Playing" a little bass/guitar. Sleeping plenty. I dunno, my personal life is profoundly boring to most everyone.
I suppose that's all for now. Feel free to propose discussion topics and questions in the comments so I have something worthwhile to write about! Otherwise, I might just do mathematical proofs. You've been warned. Rock out.
The biggest deal to report is that I'm back in cville for what will probably equal winter hibernation. It won't be therapy hibernation (rehabernation?), though - there are all sorts of activities/exercises we can improv here, including short and long sit, prone and supine "mat" (= bed) work, weight training with stretchy theraband resistance material, a zillion occutherapy/ADL tasks... Et cetera, et cetera.
In fact, it might be easier to look at what I can't do here, due to a lack of people or equipment. Obviously I won't be cooking with Giger; sadface, I'm one of the few who actually like that machine. No Wave either. There will be e-stim biking - until insurance shells out for a bike of my own, some awesome family friends in town offered to let me visit and use theirs. Note to insurance: this does not mean I should not get one. The only significant logistic limitation is that there are just two other people here, so exercises that require more assistance, e.g. some short sit stuff and the "bicycle" supine abdominal work, aren't going to happen. (Also, just to torment the docs, therapists, and others who so vehemently oppose that I should do any weight bearing, I'd like to point out that our friends have a standing frame as well. Mwa ha ha ha.)
Ergo, it's no internationally-reknowned SCI recovery facility here Bei Link, but there's plenty to be done.
All that said, my most important workout has been something else completely. Knowing that I'm waiting so anxiously to get my own manual chair and ditch the electrowheels, another client at the CSCIR very very VERY generously gave me a fully-customized spare chair that he had at home taking up space, serving as a coat rack. WOW. Despite that it's built for someone quite less gigantic than I, it is absolutely fantastic. Thus, my main therapeutic activity has been spending as much time as possible in this thing. I shall not dance around the fact: this is hard! Size has nothing to do with difficulty, either. I'm used to lounging around in the rolling La-Z-Boy, so spending even just an hour or two en manuel, sitting up perfectly and trying to push around my severely-sloped room with standard unmodified rims, is work work work. That's the idea, though. My back/shoulder/neck muscles scream and the pain meds flow, but each day seems to be ever-so-slightly easier. I can actually sit at my desk, rather than sideways next to it, for the first time in years. Hrrrrg!
Hmmm. Otherwise, various entertainment. Visits to family and from schoolpals; smiles. Slowly re-ripping the music collection to FLAC. "Playing" a little bass/guitar. Sleeping plenty. I dunno, my personal life is profoundly boring to most everyone.
I suppose that's all for now. Feel free to propose discussion topics and questions in the comments so I have something worthwhile to write about! Otherwise, I might just do mathematical proofs. You've been warned. Rock out.
24 December 2008
07 December 2008
dull blades and evil penguins
Hello kitty! We're pretty light on worthy news this time. Wait, is any ever worthy?
PT: Wed and Fri were both bike/weights/sit in some order - long sit on the W, short sit for the F. Lots of "reach out and touch" action during sitting, which rapidly devolves into "picture people's faces and punch hard"... Remember, an angry patient is a strong patient! Grrr.
OT: Thurs session was violent in a more ninjaish fashion. Our plan for the rest of my OT time is to play around with all sorts of orthotic toys; this round was knives. Hyah. I tried out several different weapons, but the main conclusion was not to eat therapy putty.
Burnt hand update: 'tis in great shape. I'm keeping the worst finger wrapped to protect the part that remains slightly open, so there are still birds for everyone, but we're not afraid to use the grip gloves for weights, Giger, etc. No more hookers, I guess.
Dumb joke spoiler: for those who have been following along and wondering, the "hookers" are just wrist straps with metal hooks on them, mostly useful for operating the cable-based weight machines without using hands or fingers. I'm not kidding, though, each is quite prominently branded "The Hooker". Not exactly P-C marketing genius.
More stuff with a colon: the plan is still to return to cville 'round the 18th. It's way way cold here. Insurance is being dumb about getting a manual chair, but I think we can out-dumb them. Badtz-Maru is by far the best Sanrio character. Most animals have colons. I heart coffee.
Methinks that's all. Catch you on the cosmic highway.
PT: Wed and Fri were both bike/weights/sit in some order - long sit on the W, short sit for the F. Lots of "reach out and touch" action during sitting, which rapidly devolves into "picture people's faces and punch hard"... Remember, an angry patient is a strong patient! Grrr.
OT: Thurs session was violent in a more ninjaish fashion. Our plan for the rest of my OT time is to play around with all sorts of orthotic toys; this round was knives. Hyah. I tried out several different weapons, but the main conclusion was not to eat therapy putty.
Burnt hand update: 'tis in great shape. I'm keeping the worst finger wrapped to protect the part that remains slightly open, so there are still birds for everyone, but we're not afraid to use the grip gloves for weights, Giger, etc. No more hookers, I guess.
Dumb joke spoiler: for those who have been following along and wondering, the "hookers" are just wrist straps with metal hooks on them, mostly useful for operating the cable-based weight machines without using hands or fingers. I'm not kidding, though, each is quite prominently branded "The Hooker". Not exactly P-C marketing genius.
More stuff with a colon: the plan is still to return to cville 'round the 18th. It's way way cold here. Insurance is being dumb about getting a manual chair, but I think we can out-dumb them. Badtz-Maru is by far the best Sanrio character. Most animals have colons. I heart coffee.
Methinks that's all. Catch you on the cosmic highway.
02 December 2008
vvvvvvvv
Hello all! Prepare to be oversummarized, though somehow still windily.
Last week's therapy was more of the new stuff. I don't remember exactly what happened when, but there took place tricep/shoulder exercises on the Wave vibration plate, more of the bolster-supported army crawl, some long sitting (legs out straight), a brief session of improvised weight training (careful with the hand), all sorts of leg e-stim bike - surprise! - and some more peanut sitting.
Wave work is way way effective! Perhaps even wave effective. Har har. I can do much stronger tricep extensions on that machine vs. without vibration because I can constantly feel where my triceps are and what I need to do to contract. Cooler, though, was the peanut party; once the PT put my hips into proper pelvic tilt position (pull the hips forward so that my lower back is unslouched and back/legs are at the perfect posture angle), all of my back/shoulders/neck/head would just snap into place and I would all of a sudden be sitting perfectly upright! Even better, after getting into this position, I could use my lower trunk muscles to hold it without assistance for even up to 30sec or so. eee! If only I could get into the position on my own...
So that was last week, which was only MTW (lunes/martes/miercoles, lundi/mardi/mercredi, segunda/terca/quarta, mon/dien/mitt, getsu/kay/sui... choose your poison) due to the holiday and my lack of desire to go in on F (v/v/s/f/k, respectively).
This week so far: Monday was leg zap bike, more improv weights, and some short sit stuff. After a delicious four days of nothing, my muscles were recharged and ready to go... But joints? Not so much. Hello, pain meds.
This Tuesday was another interesting variety pack. Bien sûr, warmup on the leg bike. Then Wave craziness. I started out doing bizarro pushups - most of my body lying chest down on a mat/table/whatever, hanging off the end from the chest on up. To do the exercise, put hands on the vibration plate and push to elevate the upper body. Verdict: I am such a wimp. Recall from grade school P.E. that pushups are almost entirely a tricep task, and also recall from just about any previous post that my triceps are mega weak! The vibration effects helped a bit, but I still needed mod/max assistance to pull these off. PS, hanging half of your upper body off the end of a table does not yield any comfort whatsoever. However, impossibly difficult? Incredibly uncomfortable? Sounds like the ingredients for an effective workout to me!
Also on the Wave were a few other slightly more tame shoulder and tricep exercises. Then it was off to one of the big mats for some "bed mobility", aka rolling side to side. Shoulders voted no to this stuff rather quickly. Snap crackle pop.
To wrap up Tuesday, I had my first real return-of-OT session! Yay. I put coins in a cup for the whole session. That was a lot of nickels. It was fairly hard since my hands were so stretched out from all the hand-body support I had done earlier on the Wave. Tenodesis (magical natural passive hand grip) just doesn't work with rubber fingers. Sure would be easier with some voluntary digital control.
Anyway, what did I do with the recent super-long weekend? Well... Nothing, of course! Wednesday we had a floor mini-party with food, festive tunes, and cream cheese oreo magic. Thursday: sleep. Friday: sleep. Saturday: sleep. Sunday: sleep. I strive to be the most boring person on the planet.
Hand update: still keeping my most burnt finger wrapped, although it's fixing itself much faster than I expected. The blisters on the other fingers have essentially disappeared. We're still taking it easy on the wrapped one since one of its wounds hasn't closed up yet; hence, no Giger, careful weight bearing on that hand, and improvised methods on the weight training. No arm e-stim bike either, as that would also require grip gloves. At least I can do weights with Hookers!
Might that be all? Possibly maybe. Björk out.
Last week's therapy was more of the new stuff. I don't remember exactly what happened when, but there took place tricep/shoulder exercises on the Wave vibration plate, more of the bolster-supported army crawl, some long sitting (legs out straight), a brief session of improvised weight training (careful with the hand), all sorts of leg e-stim bike - surprise! - and some more peanut sitting.
Wave work is way way effective! Perhaps even wave effective. Har har. I can do much stronger tricep extensions on that machine vs. without vibration because I can constantly feel where my triceps are and what I need to do to contract. Cooler, though, was the peanut party; once the PT put my hips into proper pelvic tilt position (pull the hips forward so that my lower back is unslouched and back/legs are at the perfect posture angle), all of my back/shoulders/neck/head would just snap into place and I would all of a sudden be sitting perfectly upright! Even better, after getting into this position, I could use my lower trunk muscles to hold it without assistance for even up to 30sec or so. eee! If only I could get into the position on my own...
So that was last week, which was only MTW (lunes/martes/miercoles, lundi/mardi/mercredi, segunda/terca/quarta, mon/dien/mitt, getsu/kay/sui... choose your poison) due to the holiday and my lack of desire to go in on F (v/v/s/f/k, respectively).
This week so far: Monday was leg zap bike, more improv weights, and some short sit stuff. After a delicious four days of nothing, my muscles were recharged and ready to go... But joints? Not so much. Hello, pain meds.
This Tuesday was another interesting variety pack. Bien sûr, warmup on the leg bike. Then Wave craziness. I started out doing bizarro pushups - most of my body lying chest down on a mat/table/whatever, hanging off the end from the chest on up. To do the exercise, put hands on the vibration plate and push to elevate the upper body. Verdict: I am such a wimp. Recall from grade school P.E. that pushups are almost entirely a tricep task, and also recall from just about any previous post that my triceps are mega weak! The vibration effects helped a bit, but I still needed mod/max assistance to pull these off. PS, hanging half of your upper body off the end of a table does not yield any comfort whatsoever. However, impossibly difficult? Incredibly uncomfortable? Sounds like the ingredients for an effective workout to me!
Also on the Wave were a few other slightly more tame shoulder and tricep exercises. Then it was off to one of the big mats for some "bed mobility", aka rolling side to side. Shoulders voted no to this stuff rather quickly. Snap crackle pop.
To wrap up Tuesday, I had my first real return-of-OT session! Yay. I put coins in a cup for the whole session. That was a lot of nickels. It was fairly hard since my hands were so stretched out from all the hand-body support I had done earlier on the Wave. Tenodesis (magical natural passive hand grip) just doesn't work with rubber fingers. Sure would be easier with some voluntary digital control.
Anyway, what did I do with the recent super-long weekend? Well... Nothing, of course! Wednesday we had a floor mini-party with food, festive tunes, and cream cheese oreo magic. Thursday: sleep. Friday: sleep. Saturday: sleep. Sunday: sleep. I strive to be the most boring person on the planet.
Hand update: still keeping my most burnt finger wrapped, although it's fixing itself much faster than I expected. The blisters on the other fingers have essentially disappeared. We're still taking it easy on the wrapped one since one of its wounds hasn't closed up yet; hence, no Giger, careful weight bearing on that hand, and improvised methods on the weight training. No arm e-stim bike either, as that would also require grip gloves. At least I can do weights with Hookers!
Might that be all? Possibly maybe. Björk out.
22 November 2008
toasty
Gratuitous incremental update! Enough has happened differently in the past few days that I should probably write before I forget...
Thursday night wasn't so good! I burned my hand pretty hardcore. Actually, they're rather minor burns (I don't remember my burn degree characteristics; feel free to offer up a guess in the comments), but I blistered up three fingers like a pro. Now I'm all antibacterialized and gauzed up - it was impossible not to open up a few of the blisters, either accidentally or on purpose... eewww. Fortunately, this all happened to my non-dominant hand, so I can still do stuff with ole lefty. Also on the bright side, the, umm, "most expressive" finger is now basically splinted straight - very convenient in case I run across certain people I'm not too fond of.
Skipping the obvious negative parts, let's try to find some optimism: at least it doesn't really hurt. My fingers are more tingly than usual, but it's not uncomfortable. In fact, I'd like to look at it as positive overstimulation, like the Wave machine I talked about last time. That is, I'm constantly reminded of all those hand muscles, all the way out to my fingertips; feeling them all the time might help my body rewrite the neural pathways to improve finger control? Maybe that's a long shot, but long shots are often what it takes.
BTW, Effington could be a wonderful effingplace. Thanks for the interruption (and Central Illinois geography lesson), Mr. Folds!
Back on track, Friday's PT session was obviously messed up. We didn't really want to do anything involving hands, so that cuts out a large chunk of the arsenal: no Giger, weights, sitting balance (involves hand weight bearing), arm e-stim bike, etc etc etc. We ended up breaking out the new "pseudo army crawl with body supported/rolling on bolsters" activity from recently, as it puts weight on the elbows and keeps my hands free to slap myself in the face and inadvertently pass the bird to passersby. Again, this exercise set is tough on every muscle from my neck down to below the bottoms of my albatross shoulder blades. Further, my shoulder joints eventually start to sublux under so much pressure. This time was particularly über-rough too, since I didn't have the Giger warmup beforehand to work out all those joint kinks and back cramps. Eh. Is rehab supposed to be lounge around time? Bring it.
After the crawl work was a nice long workout on the leg zap bike. Then there wasn't really anything else I could safely do, so when I was done giving Wii tennis lessons ;-) I cut out a few minutes early. The rest of the day was a giant waste of time, as usual.
Finally, the Steph dropped by for a bit today. Smiles.
Speaking of wasting time, I have concerts to listen to and air guitar to play. It counts as unofficial occupational therapy in my book, anyway - those who have seen air Claypool know I'm not kidding. Hasta luego, mis amigos!
Thursday night wasn't so good! I burned my hand pretty hardcore. Actually, they're rather minor burns (I don't remember my burn degree characteristics; feel free to offer up a guess in the comments), but I blistered up three fingers like a pro. Now I'm all antibacterialized and gauzed up - it was impossible not to open up a few of the blisters, either accidentally or on purpose... eewww. Fortunately, this all happened to my non-dominant hand, so I can still do stuff with ole lefty. Also on the bright side, the, umm, "most expressive" finger is now basically splinted straight - very convenient in case I run across certain people I'm not too fond of.
Skipping the obvious negative parts, let's try to find some optimism: at least it doesn't really hurt. My fingers are more tingly than usual, but it's not uncomfortable. In fact, I'd like to look at it as positive overstimulation, like the Wave machine I talked about last time. That is, I'm constantly reminded of all those hand muscles, all the way out to my fingertips; feeling them all the time might help my body rewrite the neural pathways to improve finger control? Maybe that's a long shot, but long shots are often what it takes.
BTW, Effington could be a wonderful effingplace. Thanks for the interruption (and Central Illinois geography lesson), Mr. Folds!
Back on track, Friday's PT session was obviously messed up. We didn't really want to do anything involving hands, so that cuts out a large chunk of the arsenal: no Giger, weights, sitting balance (involves hand weight bearing), arm e-stim bike, etc etc etc. We ended up breaking out the new "pseudo army crawl with body supported/rolling on bolsters" activity from recently, as it puts weight on the elbows and keeps my hands free to slap myself in the face and inadvertently pass the bird to passersby. Again, this exercise set is tough on every muscle from my neck down to below the bottoms of my albatross shoulder blades. Further, my shoulder joints eventually start to sublux under so much pressure. This time was particularly über-rough too, since I didn't have the Giger warmup beforehand to work out all those joint kinks and back cramps. Eh. Is rehab supposed to be lounge around time? Bring it.
After the crawl work was a nice long workout on the leg zap bike. Then there wasn't really anything else I could safely do, so when I was done giving Wii tennis lessons ;-) I cut out a few minutes early. The rest of the day was a giant waste of time, as usual.
Finally, the Steph dropped by for a bit today. Smiles.
Speaking of wasting time, I have concerts to listen to and air guitar to play. It counts as unofficial occupational therapy in my book, anyway - those who have seen air Claypool know I'm not kidding. Hasta luego, mis amigos!
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