Grad School, Jumping, and The Way Forward

Been awhile since I've written anything here so here are the big updates:

I'm currently working on my Masters in Biotechnology. This is a fun field with interesting and challenging opportunities. Most of my teachers have either started Biotech companies of their own or are doing research for the university. I have teachers designing tests for cancer markers and a teacher who runs the Infectious Disease department at a local hospital. As exciting as it is, it's exhausting and complicated. Most days after class I feel like my brain is leaking out my ears.

I know how he feels.

I will be graduating in the spring and from there... who knows! I've been applying to research positions both in academia and in industry. Where ever I end up, I will probably be taking some time to use my microbiology skills in the field instead of going straight into my PhD.

Though this does look SUPER fun...
 
Physically, things are going well. The pace of my recovery has slowed over the years but I am still regaining small amounts of muscle control in my weak leg. I can fully used my right leg and the left leg I have full control over the muscles above the knee. I use an AFO (ankle foot orthosis) that allows me some ankle movement while still keeping me upright.

 I still get asked why I am wearing one shinguard.

The newest tricks I'm working on are jumping and jogging. Jumping I have a decent handle on when my feet are together, allowing my good leg to do a lot of the work. My therapists are slowly taking this crutch away, working on having both legs do equal amounts of work. Though I won't be winning the Olympic long jump anytime soon, I can now play a decent game of hopscotch.

My friends wonder why I'm so tired after Physical Therapy.

I'm also working on jogging/running. I'm doing this thanks to the wonder of underwater treadmills. Kennedy Krieger's underwater treadmill allows me to practice the motions of running without worrying about pesky gravity. I'm not yet up to running on land but I see it happening in the near future. I do miss being able to run (in the abstract) but to honest I've never liked running. I have no desire to run marathons, but it'd be nice to know that that it was an option.

Even if I did run marathons, the competition is intense.

I still have things to work on, but at the end of the day I'm doing okay. If you've made it this far here is your reward: pictures of my cats and my friend's pet duck.

This is Hobbes. He thinks he's a meerkat 

 This is Terra. She thinks she's an armadillo.

This is Donald. He is a week old and my friend carries him around in a fanny pack.

Some things change

Some things change but some things stay the same. One thing that will always stay the same is that children will ask the questions that people have been conditioned not to ask.

I'm free of the wheelchair but I still have my leg brace. People don't notice the leg brace itself (though I still limp and am slow) when I wear pants and I'm a jeans kind of person. On a lazy Saturday with perfect weather, I wore a pair of basketball shorts. This allowed the leg brace to be visible.

I was walking to my car when I passed a dad and his 7 year old son playing soccer on the lawn of my apartment complex. The son took a look at me and asked "Why are you wearing a shin guard?" The father looked thoroughly annoyed at his son but I just laughed. I told the son I'd been in an accident and now I needed a leg brace for my ankle. The son seemed satisfied though the father still looked annoyed at his son.

The eyeroll is strong in this one.

Some things change and some things stay the same.

How Do You Find Balance?

How do people find balance in their lives? I've always had a hard time balancing things in my life. I tend to go to extremes whenever I have a choice in front of me and it comes back to bite me EVERY TIME! You think I'd have learned by. There are the things I've always struggled with (homework vs. leisure time, clean vs. orderly, health food vs. junk food) but I've got a few that have come to the forefront lately.

1) Slides vs. Hitchhiking
A project I've been working on for my parents is to scan in their old projector slides. My dad is a photobug and has slides going back to when he was a kid (though most are from me and my siblings lifetimes). Realizing that the film was degrading my dad got an attachment for our scanner so that we could scan them into the computer. Only problem is that it only scans in four slides at a time.

It takes about 2-3 hours to scan in one carousel of slides. Most boring job I've ever had.

This extremely tedious task was offered to me, in exchange for a small amount of gas money. As I'm not otherwise employed this is one of my few opportunities for real work, so I dived right into it. For obvious reasons I'd rather drive myself, rather than say hitchhiking. I started doing 2-3 reels a day.

If I ever do end up hitchhiking I won't forget my towel.

The problem with this is the longer I did this the more I felt increased lower back pain. My back pain had more or less vanished since I gave up my wheelchair at the beginning of this year. If I push myself too hard scanning slides, I end up slightly less broke but in pain. I've been trying to moderate myself, only doing one (maybe one and a half) a day; gas is a good motivator but back pain is a good deterrent. Finding balance is the goal but it's hard not to do a ton or give up entirely. It's a process...

2) Old Brace vs. New Brace
I'm now in the middle of two different braces, both AFOs. The Allard ToeOFF is a carbon fiber brace with enough flexibility to let me bend my leg a little without falling over.

Insights From Inside the ER

So this past week was eventful. Last weekend another wonderful bubble from the infection in my back popped up. I got sent to the ER, in Baltimore... again. I whiled the 14 hours in the ER, what with some time on my hands, I discovered a few simple truths of Hospitals.  

Spend enough time in the ER and you too will unlock the secrets to the universe.

The Turtle's 5 Universal Truths About Hospitals 

1) 15 hours of fasting will turn a tortilla, sub-par ham, and American cheese into the most delicious meal of your life. 

The possibility of surgery was looming. I wasn't allowed any food or drink because of the vast chance that surgery would be done that afternoon. Fortunately we had eaten at a mom and pop diner where I got a big breakfast.

It's getting around 10:45 pm and I'm getting really hungry. So I call in the nurse and ask her if, since there was little to no chance of my having surgery that evening if I could eat. She disappeared, saying that she would ask. Around 11:45 pm I gave up hope and there she was with a cold ham and cheese wrap. Kings don't eat this good.

To my brain, it was kind of like this.

2) If given headphones during a scan and the music stops... STOP THE SCAN!

They took me back frequently for MRI's, CT's, X-Rays... the list goes on. During the MRI, a very loud and noisy process, they frequently give you earplugs or music to listen to through headphones. I'm not usually claustrophobic but the first time I went through one of those just about gave me a heart attack.The music allows me to calm down and go off somewhere else.

They stopped the music temporarily while they loaded contrast into my IV. But when they went to stick me back in the machine they forgot to turn the music back on. I tried yelling and getting their attention without moving too much; I was afraid to mess up the scans.

I should have stopped the scan early on to point out the music situation. But I sat back and tried to grin and bear it. My heart was racing inside my chest the entire time but I made it through. It was only after pulling me from the machine that the tech noticed "Huh! I forgot to turn the music back on..." YA THINK!!!!!

The music is usually better when it's switched on!!!

3) Lies are often more dependable than the truth.

“It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn't hurt a bit. But since adults always said that when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.” 

–Ender's thoughts

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Bandages come off, nurses or doctor comes in, checks it out, bandages back on. Repeat. Tape on and off... all night long. My favorite line "This should only hurt a little bit."

4) My poor braincells. DAMN YOU FAMILY FEUD!

The TV was on to Family Feud. If any of you know Family Feud, it's been on so long that it's had 6 hosts since 1976. There are decades worth of the most obscure topics that you've ever seen. I felt I was both learning and killing brain cells at the same time. At least it killed time.

5) "You smell clean... like... sanitary!"

The response from my awesome friend when I got back. Though I laughed it off, this reminded me of all the chemical smells of the hospital. All the disease, all the meticulous cleanliness, all the life, and all the death... all the cleaning products. Though you can leave the hospital the smells and memories never leave you.

Hospital Rooms have that great ability to make you feel super clean and super creeped out at the same time.

Phantom Equipment Syndrome

For update on my health, skip to the bottom of the page.

In a past post, I talked about what's been nicknamed Phantom Wheel Syndrome. I was in a wheelchair for 2 years after my accident. I started decreasing the amount I used it but I didn't give it up entirely until this January. I had to transition from the wheelchair to canes, and I found myself constantly reaching for my wheels out of instinct... only to find them not there anymore.

Your brain makes a mental picture of your body, sometimes including certain pieces of equipment, like my wheelchair... until the wheelchair wasn't there anymore! My brain still had a mental wheelchair which it instinctively relied on. Think on that!

I'm now having Phantom Equipment Syndrome. I was equipped with a V.A.C. Pump that I had to carry around in a bag, which was about the size of an Ipad. I'd remove the strap if I was sitting or if I was in a car to relax my much abused back muscles. My first move whenever I sat up was to put the strap back over my shoulder and go. Thankfully, the wound on my back has healed enough so that the pump is no longer necessary. Yesterday when I got off the couch to go outside the first thing I did was reach for my bag... only to find it not there anymore.

The V.A.C. pump that's been traveling with me since May. Until one day... it wasn't. My brain still had a mental V.A.C. pump. Think on THAT!

While not a limb, my equipment is a constant part of my life in one form or anther. It's part of who I am and for few months that bag around my shoulder was part of me. I won't miss it (I named him Cato from The Hunger Games, take what you want from that) but I will remember it. I can't say too much against it, because there's always a possibility that I could end up using it in the future. Hopefully not any time soon but I thought I'd escaped the vacuum pump before. Only time will tell.

Update:

My previous post on the possibility of surgery turned out to be unnecessary. The only option at the time was to put a drain into the large fluid engorged tissue above my spinal hardware; we didn't end up doing this. They attempted to use an ultrasound machine on the mound on my back to see if they could find any fluid collections they could drain. They found one, but with barely any pressure the collection fled into the tissue. Unless a major fluid mass forms instead of the current fluid filled tissues, the doctors won't touch it.

There's a great chance that all the fluid will be absorbed by the body eventually. Until then I will have a weird looking hump on my back. To accent this particular feature, below it is where the Wound V.A.C. sucked out all the excess fluid; that skin is now sunken in, leaving my whole back marked with interesting geography.

"You know I'm a rather brilliant surgeon... perhaps I can help you with that hump." "What hump?"

I'm otherwise healing up nicely, though I won't be declaring “Mission Accomplished” again any time soon. I hope I heal up enough to go in a a pool or swim in the bathtub warm waters of the inlet sound that surrounds our house out here in the middle of nowhere. Who knows, these hopes and wishes might even come true.

A Retraction (Sort Of)

Here at The Turtle Walks I strive to set the bar high and keep the record as accurate as it can be, considering I write whenever I feel like and pretty much say whatever I please. So I want to hereby issue my first retraction. Okay, not really a retraction so much as an update. In my last entry I talked about the bubbles on my back as well as the tunnels of fluid working their way through my back tissue. Thanks to the vacuum pump (Wound VAC) that I've had attached to me, the pockets of fluid had pretty much vanished and the wound had healed all but for a few cm's near the base of my spine.
The problem? A new bubble has started rising out of the top of my back. Again! What does this mean? For one thing it means that I spoke too soon and I'm not miraculously healed. The underlying infection in my back is still active and giving me hell.

I've just finished with the summer class I've been taking in New York and will be visiting with my doctors, surgeons, etc. in Baltimore at the beginning of this next week. The bubble takes a while to build up so it's not an immediate threat. This does mean that there is the chance of surgeries, major or minor, in my future.

 He ain't kidding.

While I'm not going to let this stop me I am a little sad. Not because I'm worried about surgery (14 and counting) or that it'll interfere with my life (just let something try). No, I'm sad because this means I won't be able to get in the water. While any wound on my back is open (as has been the case since March) I'm not allowed to swim lest I get further infections. Not counting the 2 weeks I was allowed to swim in late February into March, I haven't been allowed to swim since my back surgery last December.


Think about this: My symbol is a sea turtle. What do sea turtles do mere minutes after they hatch and for almost their entire lives. SWIM!!! I know eventually I'll be allowed to return to the water, but until then I'll just have to visit the water while I sleep. Sweet dreams...

Healing

Not to jinx myself but I'm healing really well. The hole in my back, which has been plaguing me for months, is finally closing.

How my medical issues seem sometimes. I keep trying to get away but they just suck me back in.

For those who haven't been following along, a few months ago fluid had built up under my back from an undetermined infection, forming a zit-like bubble an inch wide. There were several clinic visits and 2 inpatient surgeries on the pocket in an attempt to stem the build up of fluid. After my last surgery they put in a vacuum pump on my back to suck out any fluid that may have formed underneath the surface. I've essentially been walking around with an open wound for the past few months. Though it's annoying to be carrying around the car battery sized pump, I'm glad I had it. Fairly recently, due to/in spite of my surgeries, pockets of undermining (fluid filled caverns in my back) that stretched as far as 20-30 cm in different directions had formed underneath the surface. 

Alright mine's not a bottomless pit but it's deep enough to screw with my life.

Though the wound is not completely closed, all of the undermining has been sucked up! It should only be another week or two before I'm allowed to be free from the tyranny of the vacuum pump. The underlying infection, which may possibly go all the way down to the metal hardware in my back, is being suppressed with oral antibiotics. With any luck I'll be rid of it soon. In the meantime, those antibiotics should keep me from developing any more bubbles (fingers crossed!).

Aaaaaaaaand... (pop!) bubbles no more!

This amazing healing is no doubt in part to my complete lack of a social life all summer. I've been getting up, walking, stretching, doing my exercises; but other than school I don't get too far from our apartment. Even if I had people to go see, after I am done with the studying my summer class I don't really feel like doing anything except facebooking, watching shows from the 90's, and taking long naps. To say the least I've been nice to my back and gotten plenty of rest. So here's for the healing power of boredom.

A baby bookworm, taking a well deserved nap.

Now if I would just heal up already! I want to get back to being a brainless 20-something; this whole frail and sickly thing is getting old pretty fast. 

Boredom in Wonderland

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been extremely busy with being completely bored. The last I had written I was out of the hospital on home care. We stayed an extra two week in Baltimore to make sure that the infection in my back didn't return. We've now finally returned to North Carolina.

It turned out I'm more stuck than I expected to be. I'm getting regular changes of the PICC line that delivers my antibiotics and the dressing on the vacuum pump on my back. I'm under the 'Home Care' box on their forms. Effectively this means I'm stuck to the grounds of this house. I'm not allowed to do PT or go out. I'm allowed to go to the doctor, get my hair cut, or make short infrequent trips for specific purposes. I'm lucky that I have a few great friends who've visited me regularly. I emphasize this point because I live 20 minutes outside town in the middle of nowhere.

Take the second right and go until you run out of land. Then you're almost there...

I've filled my time with watching shows online. I'm watching Sherlock (which has curiously homoerotic undertones) and United States of Tara, both of which have kept me quite busy.

 Though the show has maintained that they are both straight I still think they'd make an adorable couple.

I've also been posting pictures to facebook in an addictive fashion. I've certainly been paying closer attention to that than I have this blog. Here are some examples of the fun and hilariously random pictures that await you on The Turtle Walk's facebook.

Everything Turtles

 Not-For-The-Disabled Disability Ramps

 Walk This Way

More people are reading the blog and looking at the pictures but in the end I write this blog for my own mental well-being. If that's accomplished through prose or through random pictures... I'm okay with the outcome either way.

Out of the Fire and Into Purgatory

I'm finally out of the hospital, which is a relief. I still have the four drains in and I'm waiting for the wound care company to send in a portable Wound V.A.C., a machine that creates a vacuum to close a wound faster. I'm allowed to walk around but that is pretty much all I'm allowed to do. I'm on spinal restrictions: no twisting, no lifting over 5 lbs, and no bending.

No bending! Doctors never let me do anything fun...

I'm mostly just bored. Summer vacation is finally here and I have nothing to do. I'd normally not complain but we're staying in Baltimore for an extra two more weeks. It doesn't make sense to go home yet with all of the doctor's appointments and checkups I'll need. This leaves me in a small apartment with with nothing to do. I can catch up on my favorite shows, read a book, take a few walks here and there, etc. I'm not itching to get out of here yet but I can feel it coming.

On a more cheerful note I was the winner of Johns Hopkins Annual Turtle Derby! Proceeds go to benefit the Children's Center at Johns Hopkins. It's a $10 fee to enter a turtle into the Derby. In my last post I mentioned I was entering a turtle and had named her Calypso. I was never expecting to hear about her again but she won 1st place! Sadly I wasn't able to attend because I had been put on bed rest but I won a cool blue ribbon and $100! Since the initial seed money was from my mother I owe her that back but that means I earned a cool $90 from turtle racing. Who knew turtle racing would be so lucrative?

This is from last year's Turtle Derby. I haven't been able to locate any pictures from this years. :( If anyone is able to find any send me the link.

I'll get back to my old self again soon enough. I'm already moving around better than I was and improving every day. Assuming that I actually heal up right this time I'll be back to limping around at turtle pace before you know it.

Boot Camp Time Again

It's that time of year again. BOOT CAMP! For any who doesn't know, Boot Camp is the name given by the staff at Kennedy Krieger Institute for a two week booster shot to my therapy program. Twice a year I go for two weeks to work 5 days a week for 3 hours a day. While this is not a substitute for regular PT, it allows my original physical therapists to see my progress and point me in new and exciting directions.

The first day is always evaluations, tests, and the like. I don't generally do a whole lot of work the first day, being the object of intense scrutiny by my therapists. After the initial tests we spent most of the rest of the session brainstorming possible goals and ways to achieve them. This sounds simple but if you have ever tried to write down a list of concrete achievable goals you will know how hard this is.

My widest goal is to walk without the need for my cane. I can already do this for short periods of time. The problem is that if I do this for more than a couple minutes the muscles holding me up get fatigued. I simply don't have the endurance to walk around without the cane just yet but I'm getting there.

Along this vein there are various strengthening exercises we will fine tune. We'll also be working on balance, which has improved greatly over the past year but is still not where I want it to be. Finally we'll be working on gait, fixing my walking pattern so that I don't waste energy or trip and hurt myself. There are various ways these can all be done, using some tools that I've used before and probably some that are new to me. I deliberately told my therapist to try any off-the-wall ideas she may have, that I'm willing to try most anything. This tact has yielded successful, if somewhat odd, results in the past.

I'm not sure of everything I'll be doing in the next two weeks. What I do know is that it'll be insanely hard work and will help me improve in the long run. I have no illusions that it'll heal me overnight but if it kicks me off my butt and spurs me on to bigger and better things it's worth every second.

One last thing. When it came time for lunch we decided to try a new restaurant. On a sidepath off the parking lot we found a rock garden that had been decorated with giant stone turtles. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I learned that a group of turtles is called a "bale of turtles."Who knew?

Turtle awesomeness.

Me, overwhelmed by the turtley awesomeness.

I'm slowly turning into a horse

For those who have been following my most recent surgery, I am still in the hospital but there is a chance that I could be released tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Even though I'll be leaving the hospital I'm taking parts of it with me. The most visible portion is my new tail. And yes you heard me right. I have a tail! It's actually made of the three bulb drains I mentioned in my last post, located right at the base of back. They have the problem of getting tangled up in each other giving them the appearance of a braided horse tail. I'm expecting to start growing hoofs any day now. I can get them all removed when they stop draining, whenever that'll be.

My tail coming out of the back of my hospital gown.

Another thing I'm bring with me is my PICC line. A PICC, or Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter, is a long slender flexible tube that is inserted through a vein in the arm. This is guided to directly outside the heart. This allows the PICC line to be hooked up to an IV, delivering the product to the biggest pump in the body. In my case I'm using it to deliver antibiotics, which need the extra pumping power of the heart to make sure it reaches hard to reach blood vessels all over the body. In addition it allows me to have a permanent IV for the 6 weeks I'll have to be taking IV antibiotics. If I had to get restuck for an IV every few hours I would start to look like Swiss cheese. 

The PICC line coming out of my arm.

Finally, I have the staples in my back. I'm no stranger to staples so these do not bother me too much. They're mildly annoying and will need to get pulled out in about a week. They're the least invasive pieces of machinery I have in my body at the moment.

All in all my back isn't looking too bad.

I have to remind myself that this is all to prevent any further infections down the line. And the last thing I want is to land myself back here because I didn't take take care of my new machinery. Now all I need to do is stop tripping over this tail; at least I should be able to use it to swat the springtime bugs away...

Click the horse to see him in action. It will amaze some of you...

 

A Reminder Of How Far I've Come

This weekend I went to my cousin's wedding. I had a blast, dressing up in my best duds. I managed to pull of a dashing purple shirt and tie, the cane I walk with now only added to the look. I mentioned to one of my little cousins that having a cane makes you look classy and he asked “But WHY does having a cane make you look classy?” It just does.

I got numerous compliments throughout the weekend. On my way to the back of the church I got high fives from different excited family members, some of whom I hadn't seen since I was using the wheelchair full time.

It's harder than you might think to work in jazz hands into a wedding...

It was humbling to see so many congratulating me on my accomplishments. These were the people who let me live in their homes when I was newly injured. These were the people who saw me hours after I had been in my car accident, broken and paralyzed. These were the people who had watched as I went out to college in my wheelchair, only to return home after I realized how physically taxing it would be. These were the people who supported me as I went from wheelchair to full leg brace to ankle brace. These were the people who have urged their friends to pray for me. These were the people who have created a network of people across multiple continents, including hundreds of people, all sending me goodwill and best wishes. I am so lucky to have the support system that I do. If I didn't have all of them behind me I wouldn't have made it this far and that is a fact. This is a journey that can be done alone but is better done with the support of family and sprawling network of well wishers.

I'm continuing on, using the strength that so many people have lent me over the years. One of my aunts said that I exuded a kind of strength and a positive attitude; I don't know if that's true but I guess it must be. What I do know is I have seen myself go from paralyzed at the waist to walking, something that isn't going to be the case of everyone with an injury like mine. I do guarantee that no matter what type of injury you have you are capable of more than you think. A quadriplegic can write a novel with a computer, those without hands can paint with their feet, those without legs can run marathons on prostheses. You may not be able to do everything that you could before but find something that is on the edge of your abilities and do it. Once you accomplish your goal find your limits again and push them. You will surprise yourself and amaze everyone around you.

As for me, I'm happy hitting the dance floor at a family wedding. I may look odd but then so does everyone else. After all, a guy with a cane isn't the weirdest dance you will see at a wedding; not by a long shot.

On Nerves and Support

My car crash shattered two of the vertebrae in my spine, crushing many of the nerves in my spinal cord. It severed some completely and compressed others. Fortunately, many of them remained intact or I would not be able to walk like I have. Contrary to common knowledge, nerves fibers do regrow (though most brain cells do not); the problem is that while they regrow they have to rewire themselves. Since they do not know where they are supposed to be operating they send out random electrical signals until they figure it out. Depending on the intensity this can feel like a small static shock or can feel as painful as a white hot wire pressed against the skin.

This has occurred every few months since the accident. This nerve pain can either come on after a series of particularly difficult tasks or for no reason at all. I adjust my medications for this onslaught and wait for it to end, since there isn't much else I can do. It sometimes ends with me getting the return of more function yet in the meantime it's mostly just annoying.

Almost done...

The past few days I have been experiencing this type of nerve pain. Though it generally is on the lighter side it makes it so that it's almost impossible to go about my day as normal. I missed class, physical therapy, and even a performance of the play I was helping with (I operated the sound board; fortunately there was someone to cover the job).

For support I've been turning to my new supportive group of friends, who I met through facebook. There are a surprising number of groups who are devoted to gay disabled individuals. These groups are made up of people with a variety of disabilities as well as the people who support them. They've offered me condolences, hugs, and some practical advice on what to do to deal with nerve pain.

Check out The Turtle Walks - A Spinal Cord Blog on facebook

And finally there is my group of friends in the physical world (vs. the virtual one). This group of people have stood by me the past few months, waited when I went slow, helped me when I needed it, and made feel welcome instead of different. There wasn't much they could do to help me deal the pain except keep me company, but that was more than enough. Having that support has been essential through every part of my recovery. In a world that more often than not treats me as different and weird it is amazing to feel almost normal again. Thank you.

 Sitting on the couch with my friends was more beneficial than just about anything else I could have done. Thanks to you fun crazy misfits. I love you guys.

Anatomy of the Awkward Crippled White Man's Dance

Those of you who have known me since before the accident know I've never been a particularly good dancer (no coordination and two left feet never helped me out). I had limited skills; I could freak dance with the best of them, I even learned to swing dance, thanks to some of my closest high school friends. Losing mobility in the lower half of my body threw what few moves I had out the window. For those unaware, I was paralyzed from a car accident, T-10 (thoracic vertebrae) down, not able to move either of my legs. A month after the accident I got a toe moving and from there I've gotten both legs moving.

Me relearning how to walk

The problem with movement is that not all of it is equal. For those unaware, movement comes in two forms: gross movement and fine movement. Gross movement is the ability to kick out or jerk a limb. Fine movement is the ability to make small controlled movements. Fine motor skills take the combination of larger muscles and smaller stabilizing muscles. Obviously these take much longer to build and even longer to use properly.

Back when I was still having trouble standing and walking.

My right leg from the very beginning has been recovering faster, with most gross and fine motor skills returning. Though it has taken over two years, my right leg is almost back to where it was pre-accident. The left leg is always the late one to the party. It has made some great strides in gross movement, allowing me to walk around. The fine movements are still lagging though. I can move it mostly where I want to, but it's always slow and is difficult to control.

And there is more involved in the process than just legs. My abs and obliques, the muscles used to control your hips and waist, have had two years without doing a whole lot. I've slowly started to build these up but my time in my wheelchair did me no favors. All the small stabilizing muscles people take for granted are no longer there. I now have something to work toward.

 cliffnotes for trunk muscles

Now that I've finally ditched the wheelchair for good I can get back to pulling off my awkward mistimed moves. In the mean time everyone is just going to have to live with my jerky, weird looking, and probably embarrassing dancing and everyone can just shut the hell up! So dance like there's nobody's watching!

 Peter, before the accident, getting his "groove" on. He don't care what you think.

If you don't get this, go to youtube.com and look up Honey Badger.