I came down with a cold last night. My nose was constantly dripping. I work at a hospital so I decided to go to the pharmacy to get just the right thing. It seems like every time I get a cold I can't remember which drug is best for a runny nose. There is pseudo epinephrine, a decongestant commonly called pseudophed, and then there are antihistamines. Antihistimines make one tired. So, when I got to the pharmacy I carefully explained to the man behind the counter that I had a runny nose and that I wanted something to dry it up without making me tired. He quickly spouted off "pseudophed". I paid the money, received the medication and promptly went to my desk where I read the instructions of how many to take and how often. I saw the word decongestant and thought about it for a second deciding to trust the pharmacist. Well that was a bad idea! My nose went from bad to worse. I had a normally runny nose that turned into a really runny nose.
After 2 hours using two handkerchiefs per minute I went back to the pharmacy and went right up to the guy who told me pseudophed was the thing I needed. Doing my best to refrain from being a jerk I calmly explained what had happened. Another pharmacist stepped in and told me it was exactly the opposite of what I needed. I was irked to say the least but I calmly purchased the product and left. I figured the embarrassment in front of his peers was more affective than me throwing a fit of some kind.
I went to the pharmacy to get advise because I have made this exact mistake before. The more I think about our initial interaction the more I think he didn't listen to what I was saying. He thought he knew the answer before I was done talking. Had I simply paid more attention to the label rather than trust the pharmacist I would have remedied the problem before it happened. Read the label!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Daring to overcome fear
I consider myself to be a very mobile C6 quadriplegic and I attribute much of my mobility to my daring to cross unsafe lines and boundaries. I remember the first time after my accident when two lifters lifted me onto a therapy mat. My therapist got behind me and sat me up by literally forcing my body upright with brute force. My feet were stretched out in front of me on the mat. He held and steadied me for a moment and checked to see if I had passed out, I had not. There are two reasons one can pass out, first it is so traumatizing that one feints, the other reason is because the blood leaves your head from sitting up to fast. My therapist slowly began to relieve his stabilizing grasp so I could begin to feel my paralyzed trunk basically fail to hold me up as if it were a bowl of jelly with no bowl. The exercise was the first to begin learning how to balance my bowl of jelly (trunk) upright. It was very strange and scary and I do remember feeling as if I might pass out. More importantly, it was the moment I realized, "I am so paralyzed I can't sit up without falling uncontrollably down!" After about a week of daily practice for hours at a time I was able to sit there and keep myself upright by planting my hands in the right positions. The therapist was sitting there ready to catch me if I got daring and decided to try to move a hand 6 inches.
After learning to sit on the mat, the next step is to sit upright on the edge of the mat with your feet touching the floor, it is called long siting if I remember correctly. Now, this is much scarier because when your body and feet are up on the mat you only fall over on the mat, not far. When your butt is on the edge of the mat and your legs are going over the side with your feet touching the floor, it is a LONG way down if you fall; you are pretty much going to get hurt if you fall. This was one of the fist lines I crossed that many never do. It was really scary and quite difficult to learn how to balance and feel safe when you are literally on the edge of danger. I would compare it to sitting on the edge of a 15 foot wall for those who are not paralyzed, and add a 60 pound backpack packed top heavy (pull of gravity simulates no trunk muscles). Slipping and falling 15 feet is survivable but potentially serious if you land wrong. The consequence of not succeeding with long siting is never being able to transfer yourself to a wheelchair. This is huge because it implies you'll be reliant on people or special equipment to lift you a minimum of 4 times a day for the rest of your life.
Manipulating (sliding) your butt from the mat to the wheelchair is the next huge step. Add to log sitting keeping yourself balanced while letting go with one hand and shifting your weight around a lot. Very very scary and challenging for any C6 in their right mind.
There are several steps I have skipped that are difficult to do but not necessarily scary or dangerous, each step was critical and took a lot of time and practice. One is rolling from your back to your side (I still have to fight to simply roll from my back to my side, nightly). The next is uprighting yourself from your side. And the next is moving your legs around and sliding your butt from where you are laying (bed) over to the edge into the long sitting position.
I don't know what the real statistics are, but I would venture to guess that approximately 20% of the textbook C6s (without triceps) can independently transfer into/out of their wheelchair. I was young, daring, strong, and determined when I accomplished the seemingly impossible. One of the other reasons I believe that I succeeded was my competitive spirit. I saw a fellow quad do it and therefore knew I would succeed. The thing I didn't know until later is that his injury was C7 and that he had much more functionality than I did. I am glad I didn't know.
Daring to conquer the edge was the first of many scary challenges that enabled huge doors to open in this quads C6 adventure. Daring to try new and enabling things has been an essential key to making progress in my life. It has taken literally over a thousand tries to get good at some of them. One of the biggest lessons I have learned is not to give up too fast. There are unconquered challenges waiting to be conquered, most of them just take time and persistence.
After learning to sit on the mat, the next step is to sit upright on the edge of the mat with your feet touching the floor, it is called long siting if I remember correctly. Now, this is much scarier because when your body and feet are up on the mat you only fall over on the mat, not far. When your butt is on the edge of the mat and your legs are going over the side with your feet touching the floor, it is a LONG way down if you fall; you are pretty much going to get hurt if you fall. This was one of the fist lines I crossed that many never do. It was really scary and quite difficult to learn how to balance and feel safe when you are literally on the edge of danger. I would compare it to sitting on the edge of a 15 foot wall for those who are not paralyzed, and add a 60 pound backpack packed top heavy (pull of gravity simulates no trunk muscles). Slipping and falling 15 feet is survivable but potentially serious if you land wrong. The consequence of not succeeding with long siting is never being able to transfer yourself to a wheelchair. This is huge because it implies you'll be reliant on people or special equipment to lift you a minimum of 4 times a day for the rest of your life.
Manipulating (sliding) your butt from the mat to the wheelchair is the next huge step. Add to log sitting keeping yourself balanced while letting go with one hand and shifting your weight around a lot. Very very scary and challenging for any C6 in their right mind.
There are several steps I have skipped that are difficult to do but not necessarily scary or dangerous, each step was critical and took a lot of time and practice. One is rolling from your back to your side (I still have to fight to simply roll from my back to my side, nightly). The next is uprighting yourself from your side. And the next is moving your legs around and sliding your butt from where you are laying (bed) over to the edge into the long sitting position.
I don't know what the real statistics are, but I would venture to guess that approximately 20% of the textbook C6s (without triceps) can independently transfer into/out of their wheelchair. I was young, daring, strong, and determined when I accomplished the seemingly impossible. One of the other reasons I believe that I succeeded was my competitive spirit. I saw a fellow quad do it and therefore knew I would succeed. The thing I didn't know until later is that his injury was C7 and that he had much more functionality than I did. I am glad I didn't know.
Daring to conquer the edge was the first of many scary challenges that enabled huge doors to open in this quads C6 adventure. Daring to try new and enabling things has been an essential key to making progress in my life. It has taken literally over a thousand tries to get good at some of them. One of the biggest lessons I have learned is not to give up too fast. There are unconquered challenges waiting to be conquered, most of them just take time and persistence.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Rediscovered
Time flies! Life gets busy and the next thing you know it is 5 months later! It is the 4th of July and I have a little free-time so I started cleaning/organizing the computer when I rediscovered this blog I started. I read through my previous blogs and enjoyed reminding myself of what I was thinking. So I am going to make an effort to keep writing.
I am now 39 and life is great. I get scared when life is "too good to be true" because I am usually right. I am in the fortunate position of being healthy, happily married, happily employed, and we have sufficient money for our needs. So I am preparing myself for the next challenge that will make life more stressful. I wonder what it will be?
What is next? I have recently settled for somewhat of what I view as a setback in my career. There is less stress and the money is sill the same, but I am actually much happier. The position I left was surrounded by unsuccessful people that had power, a bad combination. Right now I feel I am in a holding pattern waiting for the right opportunity. My gut feeling is that something fairly big is going to happen to me career-wise within the next year.
Another thing that has been on my mind a lot lately is how to handle pan handlers/beggars. My wife and I decided to go to two public places this week and in both instances we were cornered and approached by desperate acting men who asked us for money. I say acting because it appears to me that they are putting on an act. I really don't carry cash, so I let each of them know and moved on uncomfortably. Ironically they were both disgusted at us like we were being cheap by turning them down. After the first incident we came back out to the parking lot where we had parked and been approached and found our car violently keyed. It makes me curious. Is there something about us that looks rich and/or sympathetic? Is it because I am in a wheelchair? If anything I feel the opposite. It angers me that someone with complete capability wastes their time begging. I don't say no because I won't part with the money, I say no because I don't feel like I am helping them by giving them money. In fact, I feel I am enabling them to not take action in their lives. If begging doesn't work then they will have to resort to something else, hopefully something more productive rather than crime.
I value how my mother made me accountable for my actions. There was no "I'll save you when you make bad decisions". It was more like, "Oh no Rick, the mess you made is going to be hard and painful to clean up".
I am now 39 and life is great. I get scared when life is "too good to be true" because I am usually right. I am in the fortunate position of being healthy, happily married, happily employed, and we have sufficient money for our needs. So I am preparing myself for the next challenge that will make life more stressful. I wonder what it will be?
What is next? I have recently settled for somewhat of what I view as a setback in my career. There is less stress and the money is sill the same, but I am actually much happier. The position I left was surrounded by unsuccessful people that had power, a bad combination. Right now I feel I am in a holding pattern waiting for the right opportunity. My gut feeling is that something fairly big is going to happen to me career-wise within the next year.
Another thing that has been on my mind a lot lately is how to handle pan handlers/beggars. My wife and I decided to go to two public places this week and in both instances we were cornered and approached by desperate acting men who asked us for money. I say acting because it appears to me that they are putting on an act. I really don't carry cash, so I let each of them know and moved on uncomfortably. Ironically they were both disgusted at us like we were being cheap by turning them down. After the first incident we came back out to the parking lot where we had parked and been approached and found our car violently keyed. It makes me curious. Is there something about us that looks rich and/or sympathetic? Is it because I am in a wheelchair? If anything I feel the opposite. It angers me that someone with complete capability wastes their time begging. I don't say no because I won't part with the money, I say no because I don't feel like I am helping them by giving them money. In fact, I feel I am enabling them to not take action in their lives. If begging doesn't work then they will have to resort to something else, hopefully something more productive rather than crime.
I value how my mother made me accountable for my actions. There was no "I'll save you when you make bad decisions". It was more like, "Oh no Rick, the mess you made is going to be hard and painful to clean up".
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