Let's talk about sleep

I have a hard time sleeping since my accident. I don't know what has changed to keep me awake, it isn't like I have some neurological reason. It might be the pain in my back and shoulder but I am not sure. If I don't move around a lot I have an easier time sleeping. Even when I am not moving, I randomly wake up in the middle of the night.
There are two ways of not sleeping, either I fall asleep really late or I sleep early and wake up at three or four am for a couple hours. It makes things very difficult. I have to get up very early tuesday and thursday this week in order to do my pre-seperation classes. I am really not looking forward to it but know that once they are finished I am done with them. Dont need to do the classes more than once.
I should be getting my med-board paperwork back some time soon and that will help me with everything. I guess seeing the end in sight is going to motivate me more to finish that stuff and move on to the next chapter in my life.

Push yourself until there is nothing left, then push harder.

Been a while

I have been lacking on my posts again. I am trying to figure out what to write. I think I will just start posting about my day and the hardships that are endured going through the recovery of a spinal cord injury. Its going to start tomorrow.

Dont give up on your dreams. Set your sights high in order to achieve greatness. No one has become great by having mediocre achievements. 

Progress

This was from 8 months out of the hospital.

This was from 2 months out of the hospital. I know that it is hard to tell but there is a huge difference for this photo to the first one.

It just goes to show no matter how slow it may be, progress happens when you push yourself. I have worked my ass off in order to get where I am today. I have pushed myself so hard that there have been times that I felt like throwing up because of it. It is all part of your mind. You need to get into the correct mindset in order to reach your goals. The hardest thing to do is not give up when the going gets tough. I have not given up and look where I am today. Just over 8 months ago I couldn't even wiggle my toes. Now I am walking, working out, and pushing myself to my limits. My New Years resolution was to run. I am not going to give up on making that a reality. It is going to take a lot more hard work but it is going to happen. The VA, where I do my therapy, is getting a new machine that I am hoping will help get my body back in the mind set that I can run without my legs collapsing on me. Just have to work as hard as I can. And that is what I am going to do.

Shoulder work

I know I haven't posted in a while. I will make sure I post every few days. The topic for tonights post is my shoulder.
When I first got injured I didn't realize how bad my shoulder really was. I know that I had broken my clavicle and scapula but thought that was the only problem. I was in the hospital, not really moving my arm, just knowing that even without any other problems I was going to have a hard time getting my shoulder back to action. I didn't even think about how much ore work rehab on my back would be because of the lack of strength on one side. Then I find out that I have nerve damage in my shoulder as well. The means that it is going to take even longer to get back to everything.
I have battled hard to get my shoulder back to the point where I can use my arm as normal, for the most part. When I was still in the hospital I did a test called an EMG. Basically what the test is is they use little needles to test your muscles and measure the nurse activity in the muscle. Its a very painful test and I don't like them. Well, about a month ago I did another one to check and see if I had any nerve regeneration or growth and it turns out I did. Let me go back for a minutes and say that there was a time when my doctors were talking about doing a nerve transplant on my shoulder to get everything working again. After my second EMG they said that I was having good return so I didn't pursue the nerve transplant.
It has been about two months since my EMG and I have been thinking a lot about my shoulder and how it is heeling. I think that I am going to look into getting the nerve transplant in order to get my shoulder completely back. Right now I still have a lot of atrophy around my scapula where the nerves were damaged the worst. I want to fix that so not only can I regain the muscle and use my shoulder like it is supposed to be used, but also to get the normal feeling back in my lower arm. I go and see the Ortho at the navy hospital on Thursday and I am going to see if I can get that taken care of.
There is a lot of hoops that need to be jumped through to get the navy to okay this surgery so it might end up waiting until I am medically retired and get it done then. The sooner the better though so I will keep you updated on what happens!

What's Ahead

Where to start on this one. I know you are supposed to focus on how far you have come, not how far you have to go, but it doesn't always happen like that. Yes it is true that I have come very far from where I started just under 8 months ago. To me, however, it is not enough. I have so far to go still.
I always push as hard as I can no matter what it is that I am doing. That holds true even more so about my situation. No matter what it is, my therapy or my own gym time, I push to the breaking point. There isn't anything I won't do, or try, to get better. I have asked for anything that the doctors can do to give me a leg up on my situation. I have not been able to get help. The doctors do know best though. I just have to push harder!

I will never forget where I started though. With all the help from family and friends I have made it to where I am today. I do consider my therapists my friends too, by the way. I just need to keep looking forward to where I want to go and never loose sight of my goal!!

Going Out

I find that unless I am working out in the VA gym, I always wear a tank top. I realize that I do this because it makes people understand why I am struggling.
I have been to the gym, after I was in my accident, in a regular t-shirt and I kept getting odd looks from people because I was struggling with light wights. Now I couldn't care less what the people are thinking about me I just don't like to be stared at. If I have a tank top on, people can see the scars on my shoulder and it helps them understand why I am struggling with lifting lighter weights.
I can't really show off my spinal scar because they for me to wear a shirt while I am lifting weights. If I didn't have to, I wouldn't.
I have all of these weird thoughts that run through my head on a daily basis. Maybe I will start putting them down on the blog and just see what everyone says about them. It is okay to write comments on what I say.

Just always remember it doesn't matter what other people are thinking. You are working hard to better yourself and that is all that matters. Peoples opinions or dirty looks should never stop you from giving you all at everything that you do. Work hard and give all the onlookers something to strive for. Yes, you might be stuck in a wheel chair but that should never stop you from setting an example of greatness.

No excuses

That's a list of injuries and an x-ray of 14 days after my accident. No excuses for giving up. Just better stories to tell. Stay strong and never stop the fight.