Relearning and Reclaiming

How do you live your life? You learn how to live your life a certain way from the moment that you are born. I don’t mean that you learn to be nice or to respect others, but that you learn to breathe, walk and move. You learn how to associate certain muscles with other muscles to make a movement. There are over 650 muscles in the human body and they all work together and are controlled by nerves. So you can imagine that my muscles are pretty messed up. 

During my time in the hospital, I met an older Vietnam War veteran named Eric and I was blown away by his optimism. He was in the same boat (or wheelchair) as I was but his injury wasn’t as severe. One day we were sitting in the day room and he said something that I really took to heart. He asked me “how many people get the chance to relearn everything? To truly rediscover their own bodies?”. He said it as if we were the lucky ones and I was pretty taken aback. 

At the time, I could pretty much do next to nothing for myself. I either had my mom, dad or girlfriend by my side and they would help me with everything. They would feed me because I couldn’t lift my hand to my face without losing balance and falling over. They would scroll through Facebook and Instagram for me because I couldn’t figure out how to use the touchscreen (funny because I am now writing my own blog now right?). They would stay in my room with me and wake up at random ungodly hours of the night to pull up my blanket or turn on my fan. These are just a few things that I can think of but my point is that between my loved ones and the nurses, I was essentially having everything done for me. A lot of it was (and still is the case with some things) due to my new fear of trying something and failing.

What I needed was confidence which was new for me. I was extremely confident before my injury. Almost to a cockiness. Now I was scared to lean forward in my wheelchair because I would fall and get stuck with my chest to my knees. 

Essentially I had to think about everything from a whole new mindset. If I wanted to pick something up, I now had to pinch it with the palms of my two hands. If I wanted to move my pillow in bed, I now had to bite it and twist my head to move it. I text with the knuckle of my pinky finger. I use the tip of my nose to work my Apple Watch. As I progress with this injury I learn different tricks to help with my day to day living. I had to start reclaiming my life and here is what helped me (other than trial and error).

A few of the best things that have helped me “relive” my life have been simple, yet powerful additions. The first thing that helped me get back to a norm was to develop a lenient day to day schedule. Just having a set time for certain things instead of a hectic, sporadic life of hospital living gave me a great morale boost. The second jump back to normalcy for me was getting my pet dog. Having something to take care of and watch after that wasn’t myself was and is incredible. Kona (my puppy) really breaks up the mundaneness of the day and taking her for walks (I call them rolls) helps me feel like I’ve regained some independence. The third thing is therapy. You can imagine that I have a lot of therapy associated with this injury and just performing any physical activity makes me feel great. After I use the arm bike once I feel like a macho man that has to walk sideways through doorways and can take naps on my traps. The fourth thing that has helped me return to normalcy is this blog. Typing out my thoughts is very therapeutic for me and hopefully reading my thoughts has been therapeutic for all of you as well. Another, simple tool that has helped me is my E-Reader. Personally I never wanted to conform to an electronic book but my current circumstances dictate some change. Getting lost in books has helped fill a lot of gaps in my day. I am sure that other things will help me soon, such as work and school but these are currently what got me back on my feet (not literally 😑).

This post is more of a crash course in what has helped me return to a tranquil life. My point here is that “life rolls on”. How you handle change and challenges is up to you but life will always keep moving forward. There is always an after. Everyone will have a different list of what helps them day to day but I hope that my small list will help in some way. 

God Bless.