300 Yard & Career Change Consideration Friday Update!

Q: How much can Monique presently swim in a pool without drowning?
A: At least 300 yards!

Woohoo! It's not nearly what I could do before, though yay! My right knee still ain't bending properly, but it's proprioceptively behaving so I'm stoked. It's hard to keep my legs from sinking to deep - what's up with that, a weak core or something? Any swimmers out there with the answers I'd be grateful to hear it!

ME

I'm allowed to cane about on even surfaces where nothing is going to knock me over. That means if I come to visit you at your house I'm caning it!

 Me & my "quad" cane. My drawing skills are terrible but at least you can always tell my right leg! (it;s the straight one)

I've been driving for a week; only locally but hey! I still have to build up my stamina for longer drives (sorry HOU and NOLA and COV and CoMO and all my other friends that I swear I will visit) but local is fabulous.

My therapist Wulf is quite brave - he takes people with strokes etc out to see if they can drive. Here he is in my 1999 Chevy Silverado, 300000+ miles, no A/C, me driving with my left foot.

It all worked out fantastically, I swear!!

WORK - I'm a vet, I like to write, I like wildlife & pets & people & making sure things are done precisely. I'm digging being part of the city. Helping cyclists. And racing.
You see, I erroneously believed that I'd be let back easily to my previous job, and now that I wasn't they're being elusive about what I actually need to accomplish to do it. My therapists wrote another report, the doc signed off on it again, so We'll See.
BUT it has me thinking about quality of life and all that jazz. I lacked that before this broken neck thing. I like to WORK, this not working stuff is hard for me. I'm down with a career change. I'll go back to school even. Whatever it takes. So hey I'm open to suggestions, please hit me up if ya got any! HAPPY FRIDAY YA'LL!!!!

FREEday Update!

What a Week! Our Heroine is Not back at work yet, she STILL is stayed by paperwork red tape! She Was, However, okayed to drive! She says, "Just Locally, but MAN will that help! This week proved she can take care of Snakebyte all on her own again, she can Accomplish independency in life, and is Well on the road to feeling like her Old Self again. Not to mention, Walking! From Facebook: "Totally, Our Heroine walked in therapy. No cane, nothin. She says, this Does Not mean she'll be able to do it consistently for even maybe Months, but it Does Foreshadow being able to do it consistently in even maybe Months."(The scribe meant Today instead of Totally!)

With this comes Internal Struggles. She says, "I AM extremely lucky, blessed, and All of it; it could have been so much worse! I keep feeling I should have been Dead or Hurt Worse, like I'm a walking miracle, and that's so so tough because I've met SO many people that will never have the opportunities I do. (And it's True; a Broken Neck would have been a death sentence without modern Medicine!)
"BUT this is where the hard part comes in. In order to move forward, I can't let all this define Me. The sadness of Other People's plights should not stop me from Moving Ahead with recovery. I cannot get "Used" to being disabled and start identifying myself That Way.
"Life could have been Worse for me. It is Time to Accept that, and Move On."

The Devil's Courthouse, North Carolina

Up there is where I first told Nic I loved him!

Life ain't just great for me. I have to drive with my left leg, probably for a while to come. I can't type with all the fingers on my right hand because of tendonesis. Pianoing is hard because of this too. I still have a very diminished sense of feeling in the lower half of my body. My legs are Always tight and pulling and crawling - I wonder if they'll ever relax! I don't know if my blood pressure or heart rate will ever be where I can race again (this point is hard; I'm determined it will though it's something I can't control!) I am definitely sweating again, and I'm going  to pretend that it will be to a point where I can thermoregulate.
Actually I'm determined to get ALL of it back. This is scary, what if it doesn't happen? There are things I can't control. I right now for me have to believe I'll get that back too. Quickly. This year. It's so easy to think that I shouldn't but I guess that doesn't really matter. Like any injury, some people can be crippled for life by an incredibly close or similar injury than someone who can be completely normal again. I have an Incredible amount of challenges, some people I know had barely any. Many had so many more. So I fall in between.
HA I'm struggling with this so much! I guess because I feel guilty and scared all at the same  time.

Meanwhile, balancing as much as I can! Falling because my therapist says it's teaching my ankle to balance. Learning how to work with diminished senses. Strengthening. Living.

Tiny Speckled Kingsnake at my house yesterday!

Friday's Update Spectacular!

Me: I'm soooo sensitive to ambient temperature! I wonder what people did a long time ago before air conditioning when they broke their necks. Oh, that's right, they died!

Nic: Yeah, life was much simpler back then.

Me: Sigh. Things are quite complicated in this day and age.

In the news:

Drugs-down to 25mg baclofen a day, and that does it for prescriptions! I was on 7+ types of meds so this is fantastic. Baclofen is an anti-spasmodic that I'm slowly weaning down. Spasms, by true definition, are created by disruptions in the spinal cord. Related to the hypertonicity of my leg, it happens when the muscle tries to talk to the brain via the spinal cord, and the message is all garbled, making  the muscle twitch or contract in various ways. There's a possibility I'll need it long-term, but it's really a small possibility, and way more likely I never needed it in the first place! Baclofen just never seemed to work for me. It doesn't cause any side effects really, I just don't want to be on meds if I don't need them. My spasms are considerably better; now they're tiny and just a bit annoying every once in a while.
Spasms are hard for me to talk about because they can be debilitating, they can progressively get worse, and many people have them and they never ever ever go away. I'm just hopeful mine will since I'm so highly functioning. But I'm getting sad and fearful just typing about it.
Luckily I haven't had ANY pain since the first few weeks of hospitalization, and I haven't needed pain meds at all this year!

Work-well...this week? The only thing holding me up is honestly redundant superfluous paperwork. Incredibly frustrating. I'm losing hundreds of dollars a day because of it.

Taxes-done! almost ;)

Bike court-I was all prepared to defend myself, it was a no-brainer really and after reading  the laws it was very clear to me that I was in no way in the wrong. THEN I happened to know a lawyer who was there for other cases, who is also a runner/triathlete, who discussed my case with the judge and had my tickets cleared! Woohoo! Not that I wouldn't have won it on my own but it was a big weight off my shoulders. Also there was Ben Broussard, who's family, if you remember, took the video of Nic and me crossing the finish line. Completely ran into him by chance. I love this place!

This is the video, how awesome Ben & Family! Whoa, Really loud!

Driving-soon I hope!

Therapy-FaBuLoUs!! Finally got to try the e-stim machine that would help my hams overcome my quads, but it didn't work very well for me after all. MAINLY because I've improved so much over the last couple of weeks that it was obsolete! It's not perfect, but my quads are really starting to calm down. Things are looking totally up! No One Knows, I may never get better past this point, but I'm expected to make a 95%+ recovery. I say 100%.
My hand is also getting better! I can shake hands again now - this is big! - and my strength and function is returning. SLOW but definite progress. I get frustrated but Simonne my OT can always show me where I've made progress even if I can't see it myself.

Geaux Run rocks. You should check them out.

Geaux Run Link

FestiVELO-Laffy's 1st Bike Festival was last Sunday, and a huge success! It's "Bike To Work" week this week. I'm incredibly hopeful for the cycling future here!

Lastly, I'm part of another blog if you haven't checked it out already, with two other women that battle life-threatening lifestyle changes. We're all the same age, all are mothers, and all stay healthy despite our challenges! Here's the link:

Cajun Titanium

Frrrrryyyyyddddaaaayyyyy!!!!

Maybe I'll fry something today? Maybe there are baby fish today?

I changed the blog title! And some other stuff! Still a bit more work to do! I don't like the background color. Comments/suggestions appreciated!

So we DID get to go to the Holi Festival last weekend, yay!!! I didn't realize how tired I must look all the time. or how bad my posture has become, until I saw the pictures. BUT, I'm working on it!!

Snakebyte, Nic, and Ji. Liam HAD to show you his shoes!

Matt & Emily

Silly! Oh, man, I love this guy!

We gave a talk to the Rotary Club of Lafayette North this week. It was a great honor because they organized a blood drive to help pay for my medical bills. These are Wonderful people and they do So Much for the community. Besides for being HUGE advocates for the cycling community, they're also working hard for polio eradication. I'll post more on that later.I was incredibly happy to meet them.

Awesome!

I also went Swimming this week! At Chris Pool. This is a program run by the Lafayette paralympics coordinator, and they meet twice a week. And I Could Freestyle!! My core is still weak, my right knee won't bend as much as it should, and my hands won't listen, but I could totally do it. SO stoked!

Earl J Chris Pool

PS: I HAVE BIKE COURT NEXT WEEK!

This is for the tickets I received. I pleaded Not Guilty. Wednesday, 8:30a.

Dr. Terro (chiropractor) is continuing to work with me, and PT/OT is getting harder it seems because I can actually work at it, which is rockin'. I can bend my knee even more now and I'm remaining hopeful it will be normal soon. This is big news. My hands are Definitely coming along, definite improvement, just soo slowly!

Me, I'm Exhausted. I've been sick, and all my muscles are achy. Therapy is *finally* where I can build a lot of muscle & it's tiring (in a good way.) Swimming is awesome & also wears me out. At home I'm doing Pilates on my own every day and yoga through the guidance of my friend Julie.
There's also arguing with social security now which is draining. They denied my claim from over 5 months ago. I hope to be able to go back to work for good, but I don't know if my fingers will ever get back to normal. If I go back to work they probably will deny my appeal. If I don't, my leave will run out & I'll start losing money.

Sheesh. I want to just give in & learn to live with my lot in life, but I figure, once you really really realize that life's unfair, you have no choice but to continue to work hard to get to being happy. It's tough, but ain't nothing more to livin than tryin!

If you're in Laffy, go to FestiVÉLO de Lafayette in Parc Sans Souci this Sunday! April is Bike Month in Lafayette and FestiVÉLO is the kickoff party. I'll be there!!!

Did I mentioned I was stoked about swimming???? :)

Have an awesome weekend!!

F.U.!! (Is that a good acronym for "Friday Update"?)

It's been an exciting week! Rebel turned 13 (here's my post about it) and Snakebyte lost his first tooth!

Kinda love these  guys                                            

 Speeches & press & another article oh my! Twitter has been fun this week! There has been a request not to call it my "broken neck," but something better. "Healing neck," "better than new neck," "knitting neck," "neckofsteel," "neckwreck," "neck nouveau," heck I even got called "Moneck" ;) Ya'll got anything? My only request, it must be a grammar gimmick! Big thanks to @PitchingtheWoo & the fabulous Rev Ev!


MONDAY I was given the opportunity by Matt Massey to speak with the Tri-Cajuns about my struggle, and it was an incredibly emotional time for me. NOT because of the broken-neck thing, but because I was personally able to thank people for the incredible support, and some of it I didn't even know or remember. The sweetness of people never stops amazing me, I never get used to the feeling. I had *heard* about a triathlete that stayed with Eric and me the whole time (Koby, I got to meet him!,) and I didn't know about what Ashley Delaune went through to find me and to make sure someone was there to take care of the kid and me...it was sooo heartwarming, I had only known her a small time before. She is the proud new owner of the Smoothie Factory in Laffy off of Johnston...if you ever go there you are supporting really loving people! One of my best friends in Laffy Town (Annette) came to the meeting to watch my talk too, I don't know if I'd have made it through without her. Also speaking was Dr. Keith Terro, a chiropractor & triathlete, about stretching for runners, and John Hebert, the Tri-Cajuns president, about the work his rotary club has done for cycling signage.

TUESDAY BikeLafayette is an organization I'm getting involved in that advocates building a bicycling community as part of Lafayette's growth. I joined them at the Lafayette Consolidated Government to hear the City-parish Council (as the Metropolitan Planning Organization) proclaim April as Bike Month, and then supported them to vote to use 10% of annual Urban Systems funding for Bike/Pedestrian improvements in the greater Lafayette area. Through a misunderstanding I was called up to speak at the vote, which seemed to turn out fine, as it was supported by a unanimous decision!

WEDNESDAY Yesterday's speaking mishap landed us on the front page of The Advertiser with me all up in it (here: Cyclists encourage sharing the road) which is awesome because I love being part of this group. Also, I had my first session with the world-renowned chiropractor Keith A. Terro II, D.C., C.C.S.P.! Well, Lafayette-renowned at the very least! After we spoke for the Tri-Cajuns Monday, I asked him if he had any ideas about the co-contraction of my right quads/hams. We all remember there is nothing proven to fix this, but he's got a few methods to try! Also there are some things to improve my proprioception. Today, we utrasounded my quads and hamstrings, and then he massaged my quads. I don't know what You'r experience has been, but mine is that there are NO comfortable massages in therapy, sheesh!! It was incredibly worth it. I have kinesio tape on my quads and hams now. I'll keep you updated!

Kinesio taping! Or, my version of the Facebook "=" ;)

THURSDAY I'm going to mention another business run by good-hearted people, T-Coon's. Today I needed to go to therapy and T-Coon himself brought me. I have so much more to say about the family that owns this place, but I'll save it for another day! Wulf was out this week, but his used-to-be partner Kristen was there, and we practiced walking with a cane quite a bit this week. Also tons of exercise for my hip. I did a lot of back strengthening this week too! I'm incredibly thankful that I can start building muscle again instead of just struggling to even stand! I've started walking wrong, compensating, which I can't do if I'm going to get back to normal, so I had to break all  these bad habits, which makes me walk tons slower. Dang!

FRIDAY Today! Seems like it should go pretty well considering the rest of the week. I'm sad because Liam won't be here due too visitation, and we have a fun weekend planned - the Holi Festival for one! Plus it's been stressful on the pick-up/drop-off,  and then there's everything else with this situation....too much to think about. This is MY situation where I have to remember not to stress abut what I cannot control!

Happiness is this right here

Have A Fantastic Weekend My Friends!!!

A Month of Friday Updates

WoW, it's been a whole month now! Well, there's been some real improvement this week. And some realizations. And some not so great things.

Original drawing. Hey I'm a scientist not a graphic designer! At least it's in the correct rainbow order!

I can now bend my knee ever so slightly when walking, enough to where if I take the time to relax my hip, I can make my right foot heelstrike instead of sliding it. I can *almost* even consistently get it to do it when I'm walking up stairs. I think it's due to a combination of my hamstrings getting stronger and my quads not over-firing quite as much. The downside to this is that my quads are still super weak, which has been masked by the muscle firing all the time, so it wears out quicker!  But dang I don't care I'm just glad it's getting better.

My hands are the worse right now. Of course they need to be functional. But I hate strengthening them.  I can strengthen the flexors. The extensors are not improving.. Not sure if that nerve will heal. Flexing the wrist helps function. This habit is called "tendonesis." My fingers are struggling hard.  All this makes my hands look bad. It is my look's defining factor. No matter how much I do for the rest of my body it severely jars the way I look.

I have this brace now that I wear at night to keep my fingers extended, and Simonne my OT also taped my fingers in the extended position to facilitate them to stay extended. The hope is the muscles stay stretched enough that they don't become permanently curled. I've got to pretend right now this is the case.

ANHIDROSIS is becoming the bane of my existence. My feet getting a little sweaty isn't enough to keep me cool in this south Louisiana heat, and I overheat really quickly. I still haven't found any trustworthy information on how to handle it soooo we'll see, guess I'll figure it out! Sucks, because the cold makes my muscles not work and the heat makes them get  too hot. Nic suggested we move to Hawaii where it's always temperate, ha!
I also was going to do this mile walk for Autism tomorrow, but the cut-off is 45 min/or so, and I couldn't even do half that in 50 min, so I guess it'll have to wait. But yeah yeah I walkered about 0.5 miles so that's a new accomplishment! And I timed Snakebyte running a mile while I was doing it - 11:32! And not even winded ;)

Random view over my house

In other news, I'm going to start swimming again! There's a free program here in Laffy that the Paratriathlon people found that helps people get in the pool. I guess mainly older people with arthritis are the ones that take the most advantage of it but I'll take what I can get! I'm having 2nd thoughts about Paratriathlon; for one there's no trainers it seems here after all and that's really what I was hoping for, and for two I don't seem to fit clearly in any of their categories. So we'll see.

Oh, I practiced driving & it went pretty great, woohoo! My right ankle's not quite strong enough yet, but driving with my left foot is just fine.

Lastly, I have been given the opportunity to give a talk at the Tri-Cajuns meeting on Monday, so I'm totally stoked about that! Luckily I'm dating a public speaking professor ;)

Check out paragraph 3's haikuish 5/7/5. Have an awesome Friday!

It's Friday, It's Friday! - Is that how that song goes?

Wheelchair ain't getting much use from me lately  But don't feel sorry for it, I think it's met it's higher purpose & is WAY happier:

Picture is coming! You'll have to wait, so sorry!

My knee of course is still not bending which is severely limiting my walking. One of my new exercises is lying on my back in bed with my knees draped over the side. I then kick my legs out, then allowing them passively to come back to rest against the side of the bed. I KNOW this sounds easy, & it is, but since my rectus is constantly firing (I'll introduce you to another word, "hypertonicitty" - too much tone in that muscle) my right leg doesn't drop down as it should. So I do it a lot a lot a lot, again a way to get my brain to override what's happening in the spinal cord (mind over matter so to speak, ha!) It IS getting better, but Wulf says at the rate it's going it will  be 2 years before I can run again and that's just not acceptable, so we'll keep trying different things. This is why I like Helping Hands; they're focused on helping me meet MY goals, which are way more than just being able to get out of the wheelchair.

I'm playing around with a cane now, but only inside the house while Nic is close by. I had this incredibly irrational fear of falling since I started becoming mobile,, even in the wheelchair! Nic would hit a bump or something and I would Freak Out. I guess because I wasn't even strong enough to catch myself. Now that's gone which I guess is good, except I'm prone to take too many chances. I'm having to rein myself in, but I just *feel* like I can walk now, so I constantly forget to hold onto things,. But whatevs, just have to make sure I keep myself safe! No changes in my hand, which is actually the main reason I have to hold back; my reflexes to grab something or catch myself are not working as they need  to be.

Random shot of Reb & Finn

Photo credit: Drew Shawver!

I visited my job yesterday & we're all ready for me to come back to work, hooray! This is amazingly fantastic news; I haven't lost my job & they're going to work with me! They've been Awesome about staying up to date with me & assuring me that I'm not going to get discharged if at all possible. I still have an incredible amount of bills etc but this is a big worry off my mind. I actually need to stress this more HOLY CRAP I NEED MONEY! But it's one more step towards my life becoming normal again. I'm NOT looking forward to the long drive every day & I'm sure I'll be exhausted, but this is way better than not being able to go back.  Maybe the first week of April, or maybe a bit after depending on if social security kicks in. And I'm definitely going to still be in therapy!

Oh, and my left foot started sweating, hooray! *Maybe* my right one too, we'll see. I don't know if I'll ever be able to sweat enough to thermoregulate, but I'm hopeful.

So with this spinal cord injury (and probably everything in life) there's the good, the bad, and  the ugly. And  though I'm fortunate because my good has been Really good lately, I'd be remiss not to tell you about the bad and the ugly. For it's part of me and everything I'm going through. Yet I don't want to, it's hard and embarrassing to admit. but it wouldn't be fair to make this a fairy-tale story for other people going through this Nor would it be fair for me personally to ignore it; life sucks. BUT I'll save it for next time. Or maybe even the time after. ;)

In case you didn't notice, I started every sentence in that last paragraph using Every Single Coordinating Conjunction. Have an awesome day!

Update Friday!!

I had an appointment with my neurosurgeon Dr. Jason Cormier yesterday; my spine is healed, yay! He's the only one that actually saw my spinal cord and even though he can't know for sure how much damage was done, he's the one that can give the most accurate prognosis. HE says I'll definitely be racing again; I'm not going to jump up and down for joy just yet but it's good news!

I'm 99% out of the wheelchair and mainly using a walker. Wulf gave me a cane to start practicing with. I'm visiting with my job next week so we'll see if I can get back to work!

BUT my hand still has a way to go. Also, my quads still overpower my hamstrings so I still can't bend my right knee trying to walk. I can make it bend at other times, but my quads don't stop firing when I'm weight-bearing. It's getting better but very very slowly. This is because there are inhibition neurons in the spinal cord that shuts the opposing muscle (quads) off when the muscle your trying to get to work (hamstrings) is on. Since I have damage to my spinal cord this is not working properly and unfortunately there is no real "fix." It may heal.

Rectus femoris, THE muscle giving me all the issues!

One thing I'm trying is to overcome it cognitively; getting my brain to convince my nerves to bypass the problem and function correctly. I'm dong this by challenging my brain by pushing my body's limits. For example, I stand on my right leg, try to balance, and only catch myself after I begin falling. Nic has to be here at all times to catch me. It's scary! I don't have proprioception (knowing where your limb is in space) in my right ankle so balancing is not working. But I keep trying!

Balancing, balancing, balancing...

This is such a bad picture of me! Oh well, get used to bad pics :)

Another thing I'm trying is this machine that hooks up electrodes to my quads & hamstrings to help them fire at the right times. Wulf says if it works I need to buy the machine, which will be thousands of dollars. Ugh. He says he knows it's going to be expensive but it might be what finally allows me to actively bend my leg. If it doesn't work, he's going to recommend me to a place that has a special machine. It supports your body weight in a harness while you walk on a treadmill, and I will need to do 5x/week for 2-3 weeks. He's Determined for this knee to bend! I'm skeptical, but hopeful.

In other news in my life, well it always seems to be something, ha! This time there was a glitch about me getting paid, and though my awesome employer is fixing it I have all kinds of overdraft fees! Dang. Also the legal visitation case continues with my ex...sigh. Have a good weekend my friends!

Friday!!

HA, Fridays don't mean as much to me right now, since I'm not working! But, they DO mean I have therapy at Helping Hands here in Laffy. I love going because I see improvements that I don't necessarily see at home.

I can now grip a 3# weight with my right hand and a 6#er with my left - woohoo! ;) Plus, my PT is an incredibly sarcastic German named Wulf that tends to rub off on the other workers and patients, which makes it a fun place to go to. He's quite good at pinpointing exactly my problem - my worst one is that my right rectus femoris (quads) won't stop firing, making it hard for my weak hamstrings to overcome to bend my knee. This is caused by the spinal cord injury, as the rectus keeps trying to talk to my brain via my spinal cord, but the message gets all garbled due to the injury. Therefore he has me skateboarding for at least an hour a day! Well, I sit at the computer or read a book or whatever, and put the skateboard under my right foot, and roll it back and forth and back and forth. This repetitive motion helps my hamstrings gain strength and eventually overcome the quads some.

My OT Simonne focuses on my upper body, so basically my shoulders and arms. Seems that I'm going to get out of here with a better posture than I had before! My shoulders get a lot of knots in them from a similar process as my quads, but I can stretch them out. My triceps and pecs are tight which is typical for the location of my injury. My hands are incredibly weak and my flexors are getting stronger than my extensors, which gives me "claw hands" that are also typical of para (tetra) palegics. My left extensors are getting strong enough to overcome that, so that hand's still weak but healing at a good rate. This is not true of my right though, so we're doing electrical stimulation on that one to help it out. I also wear a brace on it to keep the fingers extended, and stretch all the extensors in my arm out to help. Until that nerve heals though, I may never get it back to normal.

We're interviewing tentatively with a local tv station after that, and Snakebyte has his first soccer practice of the year, hooray! First game tomorrow.