Help
This injury continues to teach me a lot of things. Today I learned I still hate pain. For 48 hours, my back has felt like someone filled it with shards of glass. Don't know why. Slowly, I've started to not care why anything feels the way it does because it seems like I can't control it even if I wanted to...so, that sucks.
However, I want to say thank you to those who were kind enough to respond to my posts over the last few months. I didn't post often and have had some difficulty coming to terms with what has happened to me and adapting to the fact that permanent damage doesn't go away no matter how much I expect it to just randomly disappear. I don't believe that things happen for a reason, but I do believe our experiences provide us with open doors to opportunities we may have otherwise disregarded.
I perform education for clinicians who work with patients that have received artificial heart pumps. One of the units I presented in last week happen to be a combined Cardiac/Spinal Cord rehab unit. I was lecturing to a class and looking out the conference room windows watching people struggle to re-learn how to walk, or begin to learn to use a wheel chair. Their looks of fear seemed so familiar. So, I reached out...I spoke with the nurse manager, case worker, and social worker for the rehab unit located in Washington, DC. I asked to volunteer in any way that I could. She thought it may be a big advantage to speak with both the patients and the clinicians since I've been in the shoes of both and try to bridge the gap in what the patient is feeling and how they can describe it to the clinicians. They have also asked me to speak to the weekly support group for patients and families.
I am very excited to try and comfort or motivate those who are initially recovering and coping with SCI. Before I found this group, I was beginning to become totally lost in this experience. Your kind words and support, whether to me directly or through other posts, has been encouraging and eye opening. Your attitudes toward adversity and the struggles of life are commendable and largely unappreciated by the general public. I hate what I have gone through, but am changed in many ways because of the people on this board and others I have come into contact with SCI.
Sorry about the long post. But I mean every word of it. I hope I can do some good, and will hope to look to you all for advice from time to time. Pain is temporary...as long as there's the weekend
