From out of the jungle comes the cry of a constipated ape!-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
hi PR,
Different kinds of strains can make the body physically hurt, emotional strain and physical strain. I was doing therapy and doing what the ape was --tensing up and using every muscle to just rotate my knee inward, and ended up with a strain in my shoulder. When I told the therapist, she said I didn't need my arms, just lay them flat over my head and relax (instead of down by my side and pushing them into the bed). Well that's what therapists are for, to make sure we do it right. Once we learn, we more or less remember for another time. and we must learn it for ourselves, so we can see that it fits. Until then we don't know.
With a preexisting injury and partial paralysis, places where there is no pain (below the knees on down) then places where it is mixed, and osteoporotic bones that began after 40 years ago (from the waist to the knees) I am sure no one can estimate for sure when I'll be totally healed, and when there is pain, there is bone healing. No one would want to estimate and I can understand that.
I think the able-bodied heal faster, as I've read forums, but not sure. One stopped taking pain pills and went horse back riding just to break out again in extreme pain at 5 months. I am 4 ½ now. They talk about when they walk again and some are in 2-3 weeks, but I'm not to walk again---so I think there is no comparing. Someone said about getting the juices flowing, and get healing. All I have is therapy. Plus I require good solid sleep.
I had the 2 intrusions of surgery, to insert the hardware and to remove it. That's messing with muscles and nerves and stitching and re-stitching-- meaning I have 3 incisions that I didn't need; not a mistake, as many SCord injured people have the hardware. What I am guessing, since my damaged wheelchair went missing, and ICBC wouldn't buy me a new one until I produced my damaged one, but couldn't, I used an old decrepit 16" wide chair, and my swelling hip landed over the turning wheel right at the biggest incision, and I tried to watch/protect it. That might have been the cause of the infection. Therefore, ICBC did not take my word for it and was slow/late in bringing me an 18" wide loaner, and by now I think the damage was done (the infection started).
I tell my lawyer all this stuff so he knows exactly what happened, and I showed him my old wheelchair with the left side of the seat missing 3 bolts so that I couldn't sit straight and my hip lowered over the wheel.
Mine is a long involved story, and I'm sure in posting I have left out things than happened, in the interest of brevity, but I have a journal about it all.
So as a lay person I could say the first surgery was unnecessary, or I could say that I wouldn't have had the infection and the second surgery if ICBC brought me a loaner chair right away, for use when I got home. A Dr. might spin this differently, but I give my lawyer the ammunition to argue the point...and my story on my damaged wheelchair being stolen by/from the hospital. Even damaged, it was my property.
So am I... 3½ months or 4½... counting 2 surgeries 1 month apart?
I must just be patient and calm and not be tense.
and Beth,
Thank you. I do feel a little self-absorbed, being all about me, but everything requires examination and perhaps notation. Pain is very draining and frustrating. My best position is sitting. I have but 2 positions. In bed I pain more.
I am thinking 8-9 months, so am only ½-way into this.
Love
Izzy
