Two Years

Two years ago today a big chunk of my reality changed. 

As my seven readers might know, on March 18, 2019 I was involved in some kind of skiing accident which left me in one hospital for ten days and another hospital for five weeks.  Nope, I don’t have the slightest idea what happened on the mountain. Yep, I got to ride in a helicopter. Nope, I don’t remember the helicopter ride. Yep, I’d like to go for another flight in a helicopter someday, but without the trauma. 

The effects of that trauma still remain. They’ve diminished over the past two years, but my mobility is still limited. 

I count myself ridiculously lucky to be able to walk. And I wish it was easier to walk without limping. And as much as I dislike running, I wish I could. 

I love that I can go up and down stairs. And I wish that I didn’t have to focus on every single step I take going up and down. But I still take the stairs instead of the escalator most of the time.

I feel like being able to work out in a gym setting like I used to is life-giving. And I lament having lost capacity across all exercise categories. Still, I’m gonna do what I’ve been doing in the gym for the past eight years, which is simply working on getting fitter tomorrow than I am today. 

Maybe more than all the other physical realities, I’m really stoked that I can still ride bikes. 

***

But physicality, while it’s really important, is only one small part of reality. Over the past two years, I’ve been able to explore my sense of self within the context of physicality. And I’ve also been able to do the same within the contexts of love in relationship; and family; and community; and vocation. And I’ve come to realize that I win. 

Vocation: The congregation I was serving as pastor surrounded me with so much prayer and care that I was overwhelmed (and that support was both related and unrelated to my injury). And the congregation I started serving as pastor almost one year ago has accepted me without reservation, entirely unrelated to my physical circumstance. Also (and this should be obvious), people of all different physical abilities can be pastors. 

Community: In addition to the folks who are connected to the congregations where I’ve been a pastor, there are lots of other people who stepped up and surrounded me and my family with support and encouragement and help. The fitnessing community, the music community, and the friends community were all invaluable to me for a variety of reasons … mostly just helping to keep me mentally and emotionally stable. 

Family: My parents, children, step-children, and extended family have all treated me with the right amount of care and concern that was balanced by just enough sarcasm and name-calling that I felt as normal as possible over these two years. 

Love in Relationship: I don’t know where I would be right now if I didn’t get to be part of an amazing relationship based in mutual love and respect. I’ve thought about it, and I’m entirely certain that I would be much worse off if Nicole and I weren’t together through what feels like a circus of continually
confusing chaos (much of which has almost nothing to do with any Spinal Cord Injury). Even more, it is really joyful and life-giving to be able to journey through the adventure that is life with someone who I enjoy adventuring with.

***

It’s been two years as of today since a big chunk of my reality changed. Sure, I have physical limitations as a result of the incident two years ago. And sure, sometimes those physical limitations are frustrating. But that incident is only one part of my story, and certainly not the most important part. Having broken myself while skiing two years ago doesn’t define me. I am defined to a much greater degree by embracing and being embraced by those who love me. 

Eighteen Months: Thoughts on Recovery So Far

It’s been 18 months. Eighteen months ago today I drove up the mountain to spend the morning skiing. They tell me that I ended up riding down from the mountain in a helicopter that headed straight to the hospital emergency room.

It didn’t take too long for the doctors to figure out that I’d broken a few vertebrae. It took a couple weeks for the doctors to start talking with any sort of certainty about the extent of my spinal cord injury. Even then they were reluctant to say much definitively or to make prognoses.

Within a couple weeks, I was told that the extent of my injury officially put me in the category “quadriplegic” … which confused me (and I’ll never use that term to describe myself) because even by then I’d recovered probably 80% of the movement in my one hand, and the other never did seem to be affected.

About the same time I received this information, I was also told what a general timeline for recovery might be. In short what I heard was that the first six months were critical – that I should work as diligently as possible in those first six months in order to realize the greatest gains.

What I heard next was that while gains might not be quite so obvious, that I might expect to continue seeing improvement for as long as 18 months.

I’m thankful that the past eighteen months have proven that prediction right. Early on, the gains were obvious to me and to everyone who watched me move around. Recently, though, the improvements are much more subtle – probably not noticeable by most people, but enough for me to know that I move a little better today than I did a month ago.

One thing I don’t remember anyone saying when they talked about a recovery timeline was that I should expect after eighteen months. Will my recovery and improvements stagnate? Now that it’s been eighteen months, should I not expect any more improvements?  

It’s been eighteen months. I feel lucky that I’ve regained as much mobility as I have. I’m grateful that I can move around mostly normally.

It’s been eighteen months, and I get frustrated that I can’t move around as smoothly as I used to could. Just this morning, I almost yelled and threw things when I stubbed my toe on the (smooth, even, predictable) floor, because that leg doesn’t work right any more.

It’s been eighteen months. I don’t know the future, so there’s no way for me to know today whether I’ll continue making mobility improvements tomorrow; or next month; or next year; or five years from now. But I’ll keep working at it, doing my best to be more capable every day than I was the day before.

$ 0.02

It's Been a Year

It’s been a year.

It was a year ago today that I broke myself.

What was supposed to be a short day of skiing has turned into a year (and counting) of diminished physical capacity.

It turned into a year of trying to understand that I don’t move physically through the world the way I used to - the way I wish I did.

It turned into a year of coming to recognize who the people are who love me - and recognizing that they love me because of who I am, not what I can do.

It was a year ago that I broke myself.

It’s been a year that I’ve spent experiencing healing.

It’s been a good year.

Injury Recovery: Reflections About Rehabilitation on Easter Sunday

Once, when I was a teenager, my friend invited me to go camping with him and his family for the weekend. It was their tradition on this particular weekend to go camping, but their tradition was in direct conflict with my family tradition. See, it was Easter weekend. My family could always be found in church for Easter, and for the Triduum as well. But that one year, I was so psyched that my friend had invited me that I had to go camping.

It was a really fun weekend of camping, and I’m glad I went. But after the weekend, I realized that I’d missed the whole Good Friday and Easter drama – I hadn’t gotten to recognize death and celebrate life.

That was the first year I didn’t celebrate the Triduum and Easter in church. This year, 2019, is the second. This time, instead of staying at a campground by the river, I’m staying in a hospital where I’m focusing on physical rehabilitation in the wake of a spinal cord injury.

Honestly, it’s hard to wrap my mind around my current reality. I mean, so far my experience has been that every time I’ve been sick or injured, I have the capacity to recover fully and completely from my injury.

But this time, that might not be possible. Fully recovered this time around might mean I will forever walk with a limp … or with crutches … or that I won’t have the capacity to walk very much at all. I couldn’t have admitted that even to myself three weeks ago. But this week I’m experiencing some of that death that I talked about on Ash Wednesday. Not death which means life has ended, but death in the sense that a person experiences the loss of something significant. In my case, at this moment, it would be the potential permanent loss of mobility and capability.

This all goes through my head and my heart despite the encouragement that I get from people around me. My beloved and my parents echo the therapists and nurses and doctors and other folks here at the hospital where I’ve spent the past three weeks in telling me that I’m making significant progress. But all I really see is what I can’t do any more.

For the past almost five weeks since my accident, I’ve been almost entirely confined to hospitals. Thankfully. They’ve been safe places for healing and growth. Soon, though, in a couple weeks, I’ll be released from inpatient care, and will move in with my beloved and three small children.

It’s frightening, to consider moving from the safety of the hospital to the relative wild of the regular world, especially when I don’t get around as fluidly as I once did. It’s scary to not know how things will go.

I know I should recognize the gift of new life being presented to me on Easter Sunday. But Easter’s supposed to be filled with joy – and I feel way more anxious than joyous. The hospital is safe. I can do what I’m comfortable doing. And for those things that I need (or want) help with, assistance is readily available. Outside of the hospital, I’m on my own.

Except I’m not. I’m not venturing out of here by myself. There are people who love me who are willing to use some of their own time and energy and resources to make sure I’m safe; people who are willing to make sure I’m taken care of, that I have what I need; people who are willing to invest enough in me so that I can experience the freedom and joy that are beyond the anxiety and trepidation which accompany virtually every gift of resurrection.