My Spinal Cord Injury has Not in Been in Vain

I may or may not be able to post the rest of this week, and into middle of next week.

I've been asked to write some guest blogposts, and I'll probably link those posts into this blog when the time comes.  This is because when I write guest blogposts, I try to be a little bit more detailed.  And my posts here are more of a chit-chat - so they are similar, but a little different.

That said, my topic for today is My Spinal Cord Injury Has Not Been in Vain.  It was a tragic event and I wouldn't want to go through what I have been through to recover.  However, there is a silver lining.  That is I recovered nearly completely, and I get to share my story (with anybody who will listen to me talk or read my book).  My spinal cord injury has not been in vain because I believe someone who faces an obstacle will read my story and be inspired. And if it turns out that I have helped at least one person out by sharing my story, then the injury has not been in vain.

This is also a reason why I encourage other people who have faced obstacles to share their stories.

Finding Inspiration - A Guest blog post onthe Zen Reader

Recently, I did a series of posts about where i find inspiration.

I compiled a list and wrote a guest blogpost that appeared in the blog, the Zen Reader.

The Zen Reader

Finding Inspiration: Humor

When I was released from the hospital, I spent four months rehabilitating at my parents' home.  During this time, whenever possible, I watched episode after episode of comedies, such as I Love Lucy, Mork and Mindy, the Andy Griffith Show, Get Smart, and several short film of the Three Stooges.

I believe laughter is a great benefit to recovery.  It improves your mood and attitude, both of which I believe are beneficial to health.

When I was in college, my roommate and I discussed who is funnier, The Three Stooges, or the Marx Brothers.  During this debate, he mentioned Norman Cousins, a university professor who maintained that humor was a vehicle to defeat illness.

It's not too hard.  After all, smiling takes up less effort than a frown.

Finding Inspiration: Affirmations

I love affirmations.  Problem is, I don't do a good job of sticking to them anymore.

When I was a teen-ager and young adult, I used to recite affirmations a lot.  Not that they'd always get me what I wanted, but they were usually useful when  me achieving a certain test score.  I think that is because I worked to complement the affirmation.

One affirmation I came across, recently, was a familiar one that I used to recite a lot.  It seems to be a standard one among self help advocates: It goes like this:  "Everyday, in every way, I am better and better."  You just keep repeating it over and over, so it settles into your sub-conscious.

I think reciting affirmations is a very good way to inspire yourself.

Finding Inspiration through kaizen

This is probably my last post for the next seven days.  The topic for the day is Kaizen, and I embrace it more as each day passes.

Kaizen is a Japanese term which has no exact English translation, but loosely translated, it means continuous improvement over time.  In practical terms, small steps forward lead to noticeable improvements.

It was  the concept Toyota used to rise from being a non-threat to the U.S. auto companies to becoming the number 1 selling car company.

It is also the name of my friend's karate dojo.

So, I had been familiar with the term, but never really gave it a serious thought as to how it applied to my life.

But around a year ago, September 2013, I decided to try walking without a cane, for the most part, and to walk a long distance of around four or five miles.  I succeeded.  But from that point on, for several months, I didn't notice any improvements, until around springtime of 2014, when I seemed to have made sudden significant improvement in my abilities.  What happened was that I decided to time myself on certain tasks, such as going to the supermarket. Although I didn't feel like I was walking faster since the last time i had timed myself, I was walking considerably faster.

This did not happen by itself.  It was the result of small unnoticeable improvements I had been making the previous six months.

I tried a way to think of about this improvement, and realized is the term, "Kaizen."  To know that every little improvement does its part to manifest into a big noticeable change did a lot to motivate and inspire me to work harder at my recovery.

I thought this term was so significant, that I named a chapter in my book, "Kaizen," to describe this period of my recovery.

Finding Inspiration: Film

Movies are another source of inspiration for me, and the movie doesn't have to be an overcome all odds type to be inspirational, but it helps.

There were two that came into my mind a lot while I recovered.

Both of these movies are mentioned in my book, Toe Up to 10K

One was a little known James Cagney film titled, City For Conquest.  It is based on a novel, but the movie focuses on the character played by James Cagney.  In it, he plays a truck driver, but goes into professional boxing to "win" his girlfriend back from a career of ballroom dancing.  In the title fight, he is blinded by his opponent who uses a dirty tactic. The character does not turn bitter.  He accepts his situation for what it is,makes the best of it, and is always optimistic about his future.  Cagney is known for playing "tough guys," whether being a "gangster" or a "smart aleck," but in a way, this was probably the toughest character he played.

Another wasn't exactly  a movie, but a Japanese mini-series that lasted 12 episodes.  This series was called Rookies, and it was based on a Japanese manga by Masanori Morita, about a group of delinquent kids, who are good in the inside, but really enjoy playing baseball. Their dream is  to play in the All-Japan high school baseball championship.  And just like these kids had a dream to play in the championship, I had a dream to walk again.  Their teacher and coach, constantly encouraged them and motivated them, and I imagined that he was talking to me as well.

Although I didn't utilize the film Rudy, with Sean Astin, it is another one of my favorite inspirational films.  There are lots of movies out there that are inspirational.  Find a couple that reach you in the right spot and use that as a vehicle as part of your recovery.

Finding Inspiration: Music

When I transferred from the ICU to the Cardiac Care Unit, it was when I started thinking about "how am I going to walk again?"  One of the first things that popped into my mind was Josh Groban's rendition of "You Lift Me Up."  I'm not religious, but this song keep replaying in my mind, and I sort of adopted this as my anthem in the early stages of my recovery.

Later on, when I was pretty mobile, a song called "Carry On," by the band, Fun, became my anthem, mostly because of one line in the song regarding legs, which I will not repeat due to copyright laws.  Technically, the song is not about someone recovering from spinal cord injury, but I adapted it to fit my situation.

Songs are subjective and different people will get different things out of each.  The above two examples are one's I used to help me recover from my spinal cord injury.

Finding Inspiration: People on the internet

Something that inspired and motivated me was reading about other people who overcame obstacles.

The two main sources for me are the news stories and uploaded video sites, such as Youtube.

Offhand, I remember watching a clip from a Korean talent show about a young man (who I believe is now an opera singer) who was homeless from age 5 - 15.  I remember a Mongolian boy who lost his mother when he was 8, and then his father a couple of years later.  Then there was Susan Boyle. Nobody expected her to sing the way she did when she first appeared in front of Simon Cowell and the other judges.

And then there the stories that make the news media: like the college student who got a cut on a zipline and a flesh eating bacteria entered her body, and local news stories from around the country about people who were paralyzed as a result of West Nile, or a rare neurological condition and walked again, or damaged spinal cord due to an accident , was told they would not walk again, and walked again.  Some of these stories are similar to mine, and I get inspired and motivated by reading about others who overcame obstacles similar to mine.

Then there are social media sites.  When a tragedy occurs, people will start creating pages or blogs to keep people informed of progress.  This blog is one.  I wish I started this while in the early stages of recovery.  When reading about other people working hard to overcome their obstacles, it inspires me to work hard with them to overcome mine, even if they are strangers, and even if I will never meet them in person during my lifetime.

I think one of the greatest uses of the internet and social media is for people who don't know each other personally, to create a virtual community, and support each other.

I think surfing the internet has helped my recovery for it put me in contact with stories of other people who overcame or are overcoming obstacles of their own, whether it is similar to mine or not.

Finding Inspiration: Social Media

I guess my subconscious already knew this, but Social Media is a fantastic source of pulling inspiration.

Social media is not only a place to post updates on yourself, but it is a place where strangers connect to support and inspire each other.

There are three recent items that come to mind.  All of which I have blogged about.

The first two are combined and deals with a tweet I read a couple of weeks ago. A tweeter I follow, @BruceVH, tweeted about a man in the UK, Steven Webb, @themovingroad.  This triggered a series of events on my part, and made me come to the forefront, the realization that social media sites are not only for update posts on onself, but can be used to send messages of support, inspiration and motivation to strangers.

Here is the original post

More recently, due to a Facebook post by an organization I follow, @LifeAfterSCI, I found a FB page about a young man in the UK who just recently, in July 2014, had suffered spinal cord injury.  His family set up a Facebook page, Tristan's Road to Recovery, which I also blogged about. Here is that post.  And what happens with these types of pages is you get people from all over the world sending support and positive vibes to you.  I wish I had done this while I was in the early stages of recovery, for if it reaches people who find themselves in a similar situation after you do, you can inspire them by showing that obstacles can be overcome.

So, if you need to be inspired, social media is full of inspirational users.

Finding Inspiration: Family and people around you

Family, friends, and people around you physically are a great source of inspiration.  They are your support, and I found that when people are supporting you, you don't want to let them down.  They are your fans.

As I wrote the last sentence, I realize we see a lot of that in sports.  I 'll use baseball as an example.  If the home team is down in the 9th inning, and the first batter gets on base, and the crowd starts making noise, the batter does not want to let the fans down, and also gets a base hit.  And the momentum continues.

When I was in the hospital, my parents came to visit every day; and at least one friend or co-worker would visit me everyday.  Seeing them everyday really helped cheer me up.  You kind of feel bad that they have to come and visit you - but they would feel bad if they couldn't visit you.  So, you want to try hard for them.

The hospital workers, especially if, like me, you were in the hospital an extended period of time, you get to know, and they will cheer you on, encourage you and support you.  This  is inspiring because, although ultimately you are trying to get better for yourself, you also don't want to let other people down.

Finding Inspiration

Recovering from a spinal cord injury is not a cakewalk, especially if you are not 100% sure you will be able to walk again.  Not to mention all the other adjustments you have to make to all the other body functions that have been affected by the damage.

There are many days when frustration set in.  The key, I believe, is to not let these frustrations get in your way.

  I pulled inspiration from many different sources: family and friends, hospital staff, entertainment, in the form of songs, movies, books, and stories of strangers who have overcome obstacles.

Over the next several days or weeks, maybe, the bulk of my posts for the rest of this month and into the next, I plan to write posts of how I used some of these sources to inspire me.  One thing to consider is that some of the examples of inspiration fall into multiple categories of sources. For instance, I will write about Social Media, and about finding inspirational stories on the internet, but some examples can fit into both categories.

On of the greatest benefit of being inspired is motivation.  It spurs you into action to better yourself



  

Does Suffering a Spinal Cord Injury Automatically make You Brave?

"Spinal Cord Injury" can be replaced with any sort of traumatic event or obstacle, but since this is a blog about spinal cord recovery....

When we hear about people who have suffered an injury to the spinal cord and have either recovered well, or adapted well to their situation, many times, we refer to them as inspirational or brave.

Recently, there was one TEDTalk, which argued that it was wrong to automatically classify people who live with disabilities as inspirational - because we are just living our own lives as anyone else would given the same circumstances.  There is really nothing extraordinary in that.

I see the point, but I disagree.  When people come up to me and tell me I am inspirational for going through what I went through (and still deal with some of the things I deal with), I am happy.  Although I am not inspirational for the sake of others - I am only trying to live my life as easy as I can live it - if it benefits someone else, so be it, who am I to complain.  During my own recovery, I took how other people tackled their obstacles,  regardless of origin, and used them as inspiration.  For instance, I saw a video clip of a young man who was abandoned and homeless in South Korea from age 5 - 15.  Was he being homeless on purpose so he could be inspirational to others?  I think not.  But when he became a contestant on some national talent show, he was able to share his story, and really, by default, inspired people, including me.

I believe its both the same and not the same with bravery.  Sometimes people say I am brave for going through what I went through.

In the sense that I dealt with the hand dealt to me without giving up, some could define that I was brave. And if others want to see me as brave, that's fine with me - especially if they can find inspiration and motivation from that.  Just like I am not being inspirational for the sake of others, I am not being brave for the sake of others.  I am just trying to make life easier on myself. Although I think determined is a better word than brave for not giving up.

But then again, when you are in the ICU, and mentally, you are determined to get better again, I think it is brave to face what is ahead of you instead of giving up.

But being brave is also different from being inspirational because to me, inspiration doesn't have to involve risk.  I think being brave often does.  I didn't risk anything by dealing with the spinal cord injury. I fought it the best I could, but I had to - I really didn't see a choice.  I believe, many times, bravery is risking something you don't have to give up.  It is a fireman saving someone from a burning fire.  It is a lifeguard saving a swimmer in distress.  It doesn't have to a professional - it could be a regular Joe saving someone, but they are risking their lives voluntarily to save someone else.

There is a Winnie the Pooh - Christopher Robbins cartoon which I posted earlier that implies we are stronger and braver than we think we are.  I think that's true.

So, bottom line - I think those of us who have experienced spinal cord injury and have recovered or adapted are inspirational.  It does take a lot of hard work to do both.  While we do it for the sake of ourselves, and not for others, there is a residual effect it has on others, and that is inspiration.

Are we brave just because we suffered spinal cord damage and live with it?  Yes and no.  I think in the beginning we are brave.  We can just give up, but we don't, and there is an element of braveness in that.  However, once we adapt and live our "new normal" lives, while we can still be inspirational, I don't think we are brave anymore.



 

Evolution of Reasoning Behind Toe Up to 10K

When I was in the hospital, I wanted to have a baseline to compare my recovery.  I wanted to know wanted to know when my legs would start to move, when my bladder and bowels would recover, when I would be strong enough to stand, etc.

Except for that I would probably spend a year in a wheelchair and that I would be walking "well enough: in two years (and this was stated when it was thought I had Guillain-Barre syndrome).  And no answer to when and how the bladder/bowel would recover.

Finding info on regaining the ability to walk wasn't so bad.  There were some stories of people were able to walk again, but there were other stories of people who were still not able to so after some years, and some who took several years to regain enough strength to stand.  However, just finding stories of walking recovery were difficult to find.

As far as bowel and bladder recovery, I found even less info.

So, initially, I wanted to share my chronology.  I know everybody recovers at a different pace, and the amount of recovery differs among individuals, and the issues differ depending on where the injury(ies) took place, but if I contributed my story, there would be at least a record of how, how long, and how much I recovered from my issues. 

But as I wrote the book, and as I experienced a rather rapid pace towards "normal enough," my theme seemed to change from providing my story to which others can compare to, to providing an inspirational and motivational piece for someone who finds him/herself in a similar situation - and reach out to those who have issues other than physical, and perhaps use the same strategies I did (finding inspiration, movitation and working towards goals) to overcome his/her obstacles - with the one advantage I did not have, which is the trial and error I went through to find the right mind-set and action-set.

So, what I think I ended up, with Toe Up to 10K, is a book, superficially chronicles the timeline and progress I made during my recovery, but is really about how I drew inspiration and motivated myself to recover as best as I could.  I realize that I've had a remarkable recovery, and I know not all of it is due to own hard work - that my body responded to some intangibles, but I don't think I would have recovered as well as I have without the work I put into recovery - and ultimately, I just wanted to share my story, for I believe each story of a successful builds upon other people's stories and provides inspiration for those who found themselves in the same situation I found myself in two years ago.       

Inspiration from helpful strangers - Twitter

Twitter is a strange place.  About 99% of the people I follow or who follow me, I don't know personally,  yet I read their tweets, RT, favorite, and sometimes reply to the tweets.  Sometimes this is where I get breaking news, as someone will tweet about it before I hear about it on the news. But its main use for me is to find books to read, and to read interesting quotes (tweets), mainly the inspirational, motivational, and sometimes whimsical ones.

This blogpost is about one particular tweet that was relevant to me on several levels.  So, here it goes as best as I can explain it.  @BruceVH  @themovingroad

 I follow life coach and runner Bruce Van Horn on Twitter.  I follow him because his tweets have an inspirational and motivational quality to them.

So, earlier this week, he tweeted about a paralyzed man in the UK who blogged about Van Horn's book on training for a marathon, and how the book inspired him, and how he applied the tips to his own situation.

I opened up the tweet and read the blog post.  This man, Steven Webb, was a runner until he broke his neck.  Through Twitter, he "found" Van Horn, and eventually read his book on marathon training, and though the book itself is on marathon training, it can be applied to one's own situation.

After exploring his blog, I found out that Webb is writing about his experiences with paralysis, one project seems to be a book in progress titled, The Moving Road.  He has other writings available, including a blog he maintains.

Now how did this apply to me?

1. In 2012, directly or indirectly from meningitis, my spinal cord was damaged.  Fortunately, my time in a wheelchair was limited to four months. So, here was an instant connection to Webb.

2.  During my recovery process, a goal I have set for myself is to someday be well enough to run a 10K race.  I'm at the point where I can walk as fast as I can before I got sick, can actually jog, but I really can't sprint. I can, but I can't - it's hard to explain.  So, although I was already a Van Horn follower, the book Webb reviews, You Can Go the Distance, connects to me.

3. Webb writes that he applied some of the techniques to his own life, though the book is targeted at marathon training. One of the strategies I've used throughout my recovery has been to find inspiration from all sources, songs, movies, stories about others who have overcome obstacles, etc. It didn't matter whether the subject dealt with spinal cord injury or trying to reach the championship game in a high school baseball tournament - I've tried to apply these "lessons" to my own situation.

4.  Webb shares his experience through a blog, as do I, and also is writing a book.  Van Horn also shares his knowledge and experience through writing.  Before I got sick, I had two books out, and a third one, Toe Up to 10K, which will be out around September 5, is my book journaling my recovery process from spinal cord injury.   So, there is a fellowship of authors here, but more important is the sharing of our experiences.  When one finds him/herself in a situation, we want to learn what's next.  Everybody is different, and by reading about a variety of experiences, one can find commonality with others even though the exact circumstances may not be the same.  Writing about our own experiences may help others dealing with theirs.

So, one little tweet I read from a man I follow on Twitter, but never met on Wednesday morning affected me on several levels in a positive way.

Here is the book Webb blogged about, written by Van Horn
Click here












And here is the link to Steven Webb's blog
Steven Webb's blog


Finally, some shameless self promotion.  My book, Toe Up to 10K will be out around September 5.  Certainly in eBook format, and most likely, also available in physical format from some eBook retailers.