This post was started because of the idea that my wife, Deb, is on a mission to walk again, almost 17 years after a car accident rendered her paralyzed from the solar plexus down. I have shared some stories and history in order to establish why my wife's story is even blog-worthy. But I guess I can tell a tidbit of what's going on now to get to the goal of walking.

Obviously neither of us has ever been through the process of getting legs that have not been used on purpose in 17 years to function again. And given that the doctors have decided that its a lost cause, there isn't a lot of professional help insurance or government programs jumping in our direction. The biggest practical help has been the massotherapist, John, who showed us how Deb's leg muscles can be stimulated into responding to outside force. She has actually moved her foot on a couple of occasions, but nothing that has been sustained.

We have thought about this for ages: what can we do besides wishing and hoping that could give Deb real progress toward walking. Well one thing we've tried lately is encouraging (heck, anything that keeps us believing in this cause is encouraging, actually); I have been standing Deb up in the morning.

I always saw the melodramatic TV shows where a person who couldn't use their legs would be forced to drag themselves along a set of parallel bars for countless minutes while their "friend" shouted at them and told them not to give up, either pumping them up or pissing them off enough to drag their lifeless limbs just one more inch. Two weeks later, they're skipping out of the rehab center, thanking Dr. Welby for all he's done for them.

Sorry, I wish I could say that's how its going, but its not. What is happening is that, instead of picking Deb up every morning and placing her in her wheelchair, I grab her around the waist and hoist her up to her feet. At first I thought it was just a good way to give her some creative visualization, seeing herself in the mirror in all her 5' 11" glory, feeding her vision and her passion to walk again. This it did, but what we also found was that her legs actually tried to cooperate! I was nervous that her legs would either spasm and kick, or buckle at the slightest pressure. Neither was the case. Her legs would actually straighten for a moment (as they do when they spasm sometimes) and I found they could actually support maybe 10% of her weight (my uneducated guestimate) as she stood and pivoted into her chair! That first time we did it, we were so overjoyed we cried. We looked at each other as if for reassurance that the slight support her legs gave was actually real, not wishful thinking. It is real, her legs actually straighten and stiffen in response to being lifted up and share in holding her up. Its been about of week of this, and while that is way too soon to expect further progress, it definitely reinforces the idea that we are on to something.

Stay tuned folks...something wonderful is happening!!!

The Power of Thought

My apologies for taking so long to continue the odyssey, there has been a lot going on in our lives, including starting the process of buying a new home. Even that process adds to the awe and inspiration that my Deb manifests. We have been talking about moving for quite some time, but it was always just talk. Deb decides to rejuvenate her positive thinking skills after a watching a video called "The Secret" that talks about the Law of Attraction whereby we attract everything in our lives to ourselves based on our thinking. Anyway, to make a long story short, she decides to write down the house that we want. She types on a piece of paper, "I have a four bedroom ranch house with hardwood floors, a finished basement and an attached garage." (Note that she did not request that it be wheelchair accessible.) A couple of weeks later, she tells the father of a friend of hers, who happens to be a real estate broker, that she's looking for a four-bedroom ranch with hardwood floors, a basement and attached garage.

Now I'm thinking, "There is no way we find exactly that anywhere near our price range". A week later, Charles, the real estate broker calls and wants us to look at a house. In a nice neighborhood, four bedrooms. I decide to humor my wife and go along. We get there and the first thing I see is the attached garage. Ok, so far so good...but I'm just here to look. We get Deborah inside and, low and behold, hardwood floors! Joe says, "...and you have to see the basement. Its finished, with another bathroom and kitchen down there." WOW! It was like Jeanie had said, "Yes, Master!" and blinked her eyes, peeling the house right off the paper slapped it in the middle of this nice middle-class neighborhood.

On the refrigerator was a fragment of the famous poem, Desiderata by Max Ehrmann, which read:

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore, be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham,
drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

If ever there was a sign, the line, "No doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should" would definitely be one. I was still in knots about the affordability. Charles said we were already preapproved by his financing partner. Then he told me the asking price, which was about 20% less than what I had found for comparable houses in comparable neighborhoods, and that included the improvements that the owner was making! There was just one last hurdle ("here you go, Universe, let me see you handle this!") that my overly-analytical mind was throwing out there: the house was not wheelchair-accessible. I couldn't buy a new home that would be a jail for my Sweetie. Even the current owner jokingly asked why she hadn't put "wheelchair-accessible" on her wish-list. Deb replied that she doesn't like to focus on her disability, but she was sure everything would be ok.

As it turns out, when we went back to see the house a second time, the contractor doing the upgrades for the owner is well-versed in ADA building regulations and had some excellent ideas to make the house comfortable for my wife. He really knew his stuff and being the one making current upgrades, could easily incorporate the designs into what was already being done. Another "WOW!"