Last Sunday we went to Natchitoches to witness my Great Aunt Anna's induction to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. The timing was especially special as it coincided with the opening of the brand new museum. My dad gave a speech since they were very close. She didn't have kids of her own, and subsequently I was close to her too - she taught me how to read, even. At age three I was reading the newspaper because of her! She was incredibly smart and had completed a post-doc at Harvard (where she won a tennis title beating the other women AND men). She was the first woman in professional tennis to wear shorts instead of a skirt and literally dominated several other sports, including hurdles, baseball, track, basketball, etc etc, for over a decade, even being named New Orleans Greatest All-Around Athlete of the 1930s.
A lot of comparisons have been speculated between us recently, namely I guess our persistence and dedication, and encouragement to others to compete, but as Nic pointed out there's a HUGE difference between us -she is described as "terse" and I am most decidedly NOT, ha!
This is my amateur video of her actual induction
CoxSports TV (the video won't work for some reason! This link will). Please watch it it's really really good!
One of several write-ups
Pictures of us and my dad at the ceremony________________________
Monday: Wulf (my PT) was on vacation for three weeks and now he's back, which I'm incredibly glad for. He's always excited for me when something awesome happens, and is gentle with the sad stuff. Don't tell him I talked nicely about him, though! I have to keep up my tough outer shell ;)
My abnormal muscle tone is still crazy high, but he convinced me not to worry about it. He also told me that I might be over-training, and I'm maybe not the calmest person he's ever met, and to relax a bit - what?? Pshaw! But the truth is, I just can't feel as well, even when my muscles are sore or whatever, so mmaayybbeee. We'll see. I asked him about when I can walk again, to see when I can start running again. He said I could walk alright without the cane now, albeit slower (yay!) but running has a hop in it that is limited by my increased muscle tone, and there is nothing I can do about that. Sadness.
I read a fake Buddha quote, "The trouble is, you think you have time." This makes me think, if I had the time to heal I would. 50 years, 300 years, whatever. But I don't have that kind of time, and that's a harsh truth. BUT I do have Tons of time, so I'm going to pretend I'm going to heal fast!
The other thing on Monday is, my business is official! I still have noooooo idea what I'm doing, even pricing, but hey it's a step forward. I've also decided I need a small segment of the population to critique my webpage, and I've decided that should be ya'll blogliophiles! I'm doing it myself, and the picture credit goes to Drew Shawver - I don't even know where to put credits in! My awesome neighbor Darren is going to come up with a couple of logo ideas for me. SO, it's sparse, and I've got tons and tons and tons of work, but any and everything you come up with I will take into consideration. PLEASE. I've left it a little sparse on purpose. So if you don't mind, please get in touch with me with your thoughts! You can comment, or Facebook, or email, or use the "Contact" form on the page, or whatever. I plan on having an awesome lawyer help me, and I think I need an accountant? Oh, and I have this "Business Plan" template I should do something with.
And, as you probably didn't guess, I've named it Cadence Veterinary Behavior Solutions, LLC. No real mind-blowing awesome thought process behind that, just the word "cadence" makes me happy and people generally know how to spell it. Seeing how "Cadence Veterinary Behavior Solutions" is long, and to shorten a word or two would be confusing, I'm sticking to "Cadence Veterinary" as the trade name (is that what it's called?) Plus when I'm all healed up I could still use the name for my medicine-inclined stuff. SO, I don't expect large profits or anything, but hey it's something to focus on, and it's in my profession which I'm really starting to miss.
Okay, Okay, here it is:
Yikes I'm so embarrassed and bashful!
Tuesday: Well dang I don't remember much about Tuesday, Monday and Wednesday were pretty eventful. It was my mom's birthday- you should wish her happy birthday!
Wednesday: Wednesday I was a little down when I woke up. I still have hypertonicity, and it's what's going to keep me from running, and bleh. But Then, I went to therapy.
My OT Simonne had me repeat these strength tests for my hands, and I'm Much Stronger. 7x more in one case of my right thumb, and getting close to normal strength with my left hand. My right wrist is much stronger too, and I'm able to extend it quite well now.
It was also testing day for PT (if you remember, OT mainly works with upper body, PT with lower). I walked a set distance, I don't know what it is, in 20 seconds with the quad cane; it was 53 seconds approximately 2 months ago. Then I walked it in about the same amount of time with a regular cane. Then I walked it in about the same amount of time with NO cane. Nothin. So, rockin! Also my balance test was better, which in my case reflects that my tone really IS decreasing, even though it's up higher than I want right now! And now therapy is going to start focusing more on balancing. Which, of course, is going to involve falling a lot. In fact, I'm required to stand with my eyes closed until I fall over and over and over and over. Sigh. BUT I scored high enough on the test to graduate from a quad cane!
In not so great news, I got denied unemployment Again. I don't understand - something about being instructed to and then not getting an unemployment agency and going to their office. I think. The jargon is really weird. Which is the first I'm hearing about it if that is what they meant! I imagine this has something to do with being a pregnant administrative assistant...not a broken-neck vet... So, I'm appealing it. Yet again. There's even more to it than that, like they changed my username without telling me, which made me have to skip a week, and more... It's just tedious. I've also been turned down for food stamps (appealing that) and still waiting on my hearing for social security.
And here's my thing. I've *always* maintained that I'm going to be self-sufficient and never ever need government assistance. I've never thought anything else. And now that I need it, it's not there!
Now that this is happening to me I'm seeing there's a bunch of friends I know now that have needed it too, when I thought they didn't need it. Way more of us than I realized. AND the amount of craziness that I have gone through and I still don't have access to it, it's unreal.
I know some people make a living on it, like scamming the system IS their job, but what about regular people that don't have the education or computer savvy and access I do, what about them? Well, I found out, they just don't get it. They don't get the help they need. It's sad. These are people I know now too, from therapy.
This experience has shown me that people that shouldn't need government assistance because they are highly educated and/or have a good work ethic still do need it, and other people who do need it but are older and/or poorer can't access it because the path is too convoluted for them to get it. Our system is way more messed up than I ever realized.
Now that this is happening to me I'm seeing there's a bunch of friends I know now that have needed it too, when I thought they didn't need it. Way more of us than I realized. AND the amount of craziness that I have gone through and I still don't have access to it, it's unreal.
I know some people make a living on it, like scamming the system IS their job, but what about regular people that don't have the education or computer savvy and access I do, what about them? Well, I found out, they just don't get it. They don't get the help they need. It's sad. These are people I know now too, from therapy.
This experience has shown me that people that shouldn't need government assistance because they are highly educated and/or have a good work ethic still do need it, and other people who do need it but are older and/or poorer can't access it because the path is too convoluted for them to get it. Our system is way more messed up than I ever realized.
So ME, I'm fighting what I can fight, and holding out until the retirement money that I had put away makes it through. Because that's what I have to do to make it work, take my retirement out early. I'm a professional that has worked full time and more as much as possible, hit by an illegal driver and blamed for it, lost my government job in a shady way, and too disabled to get a high enough paying one to cover my bills. I'm sure glad I pay taxes to the government that I have to fight to help me out when I need it. Awesome. Go USA.
Enough ranting! I love my country, just there's always room for change!
Thursday - Independence Day! Man this blog is long enough already, ya'll have an awesome week!
Always inspiring. btw I am up to 45 min runs every other day... Determined to cross that finish line with you in February!
ReplyDeleteYo. On the front page of your website I would remove, "Medical intervention will be used when appropriate." You, being a vet, may know what that means but it is scary sounding and could drive people away. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteYo again. I mean, medical intervention is something you should discuss with a client right, in person, but on its own there it is sort of frightening.
ReplyDelete