Boy is it. I just got my new whites yesterday from the “House of Portly Fencers” and I tried them on with my knee brace, plastron, and chest protector. Then I added the lame. I could both move and breathe. What a concept.
Of course if I get smoked at nationals, it is obviously because the whites and lame did not work right. But I digress. (Me?) I looked at myself in the mirror and did not look like a stuffed sausage any more. I look solid, but not as bad. I still need to drop 50 pounds.
So I spent some time holding the grandest pity party of them all and just laid on the bed curled up bemoaning my situation. Oh and as much as I hate to admit it, I am up to about a 5 hour stint at night with the CPAP (still trying to get used to it) and I have to admit I am not as tired and I am not falling asleep at 7:30. I can stay up to 9 now. I hate it when the Doctor is right.
In a nutshell, I hate this so much. Yes, I am alive, I am fencing, I do have a loving wife and two beautiful grandchildren, I am there mentally for work, I have left any expectations by the Doctors (and I see a LOT of them) in the dust, and it beats the alternative. (Does it? How do you know?)
Granted, people are trying to understand my situation, but, and I mean this in the sincerest and nicest way, unless you have been here you cannot understand. Thank whatever deity that I have met Scott Rodgers and am getting involved in the brain injury foundation.
Scott was telling me that I am going to inspire people I do not even know. They are going to read the articles about me or hear the story, or stumble across my blog and get the inspiration to go on. He said he has people coming up to him at tournaments and introducing themselves and telling him he has inspired them. We are not doing this for notoriety. But the key thing I heard from him is the hardest thing he faced was wanting to be like he was before the accident. I look at a broken neck as worse than mine. Bur he has been there and he understands. We were trading funny “standing up from the wheelchair” stories. Like not locking the wheels and standing. Flop
I think working with the San Diego Brain Injury Foundation is going to be good for me. I want to give back. The people at Barrow are angels on earth and my surgeon is, as my local refers to him, the “God of Neurosurgery.”
Dandy, why can’t I be like I was before? OK,I have balance issues and speech problems. I can sort of live with the aphasia, but why can’t I get the old me back? Didn’t they fix me? Isn’t there a warranty or am I now “scratch and dent?”
06-26-2008 11:21 AM