Sunday, September 05, 2010

Why We Are Sharing This Journey

Sometimes we have to stop and ask ourselves why we do some of the things we do.    In talking with Deb, she shared a very important aspect of this blog for her that I had not considered.  She often asks me to share details that are minute or personal that I have heretofore forgotten to include, or worse, been guilty of the unpardonable sin of ignoring my wife's wishes.  Today she explained her reasoning.

Deb is not the first person to regain mobility after some affliction or injury, we have heard of a few others.  However, nowhere have we found a chronicle of the details of the long and arduous journey from immobility to health.  We hear of where they started and how long it took to recover. Nowhere have Deb or I heard or read about what we might expect on a day-to-day basis.  The twists and the turns.  The speed bumps.  The processes to go through or what seemingly minor incidents constitute major triumphs on the road to full wellness.


Little things that healthy people sometimes take for granted have been roadsigns to recovery for Deb and she would like to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the next person or persons who find themselves challenging medical and conventional wisdom to follow in attempting the so-called "impossible".  She firmly believes that there will be more and more people defying the sentence of disability that medical doctors had down and she would like to give them a little more insight than she had when she started out.

Things that Deb thought it might be helpful to share:
  • For years, Deb could not burp, her diaphragm didn't function well enough to make it happen.  Minor detail, right?  Imagine the torture a good spicy burrito can cause if you couldn't follow it up with a good burp.  She started burping again about a year ago after acute meridian acupuncture treatment with Dr. Issam Nemeh.  Now instead of "excuse me", I've told her to follow her burps with a "Thank you, God!"
  • Sitting on the edge of the bed without assistance was a major accomplishment.  Before working out with a trainer at Club Fit, sitting up unaided was a precarious proposition because of the lack of core strength and muscle control that Deb started regaining recently.
  • Complications from medication.  Until she stopped taking prescription medications five years ago, many indications she had to deal with , like dry skin, hair loss, dry mouth, chronic constipation, drowsiness, lethargy, irritability, were simply side effects of the nine or so meds she had been prescribed at various times.
  • Deb can sweat now! (I know, ladies "glisten").  While taking medications, Deb would not sweat when it was hot, making it much harder to stay cool in hot weather.  When she got off of medications, lo and behold, she could sweat appropriately again.  We're not sure which one was the culprit.
  • Toe wiggling is actually one of the toughest movements to regain because they are further from where the nerve signals originate.  Movies and TV shows often showed a recovering patient moving their toe as a sign of recovery.  Pure literary license.  Truth is, the closer to the injury, the stronger the initial nerve signals are that cause movement, like Deb and her diaphragm and holding in her stomach.
These are a just a few of the kinds of things that Deb feels it is important to chronicle in order to give the next wave of miracle recoverees something to hold on to on their climb to complete health.

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