Got out on the water again yesterday - thanks as always Nathan for picking up the kayaks and making that happen. We paddled an extra couple miles and I'm feeling it today. I fight hard and concentrate on keeping my body straight, my shoulder blade down, my wrist steady... everything is an exercise. The searing "knife-in-the-gut" pain tells me my right abs are activating and I've retrained my brain that its a good feeling! This time there was a lot of boat traffic on the water, a small ship passed by throwing a head high wake. Nathan's even mellower than I am, I'm looking at him like "Oh sh*t!" and he's, in his quiet mellow voice "Just paddle, paddle right on through it...."
I started seeing a chiropractor who specializes in neurological matters. So far, I'm on a new regimen of nerve boosting supplements including B-12 injections. By now I have a pretty good idea of my rate of recovery and will be able to tell in a couple months how it's helping me. Wednesday will be the first time I really work with him, I'll keep it updated.
Almost 2 years after breaking my neck, I continue to work harder than ever for function and recovery. Over the past few weeks my hamstrings have started to flicker and fire, the left one stronger than the right. By now, physical life is a conscious exercise. Every movement self-scrutinized - am I:
sitting straight/shoulder level//over compensating/keep that side squeezed!/elongate obliques/pull with the lower back/scapula flexed/forearm contracted/fingers stretched/counter-twist torso/hips set/flexors/extensors/ think - try and move a leg/crunch the abs/on and on all day long!
This is by now a part of life. It's a sub-conscious habit and drive that is slowly but surely paying off. I'm humbled at the scope of this injury, it leads into so many topics that I don't even know where to start.
You kind of reach a point where you say "I can accept this, I can accept this condition, what's happened to me, this new life. But not forever, this is not my future. In fact my nerves are reconnecting, growing and healing. I can accept but not settle."
The motivation and drive to believe and keep trying, to not only survive but grow stronger as a person, really - to be honest -, comes pretty easily because of the people I am surrounded with. Kinnavey and all my family, to that I have only close friends that are my family too. Life in spite of itself is rich and largely a matter of perspective and perception.
This picture captures an increasingly rare sighting: blue sky. I just noticed there is a mountain blocking the view.
