Today is my second TM anniversary…0n 9/18/23 I woke up paralyzed from the shoulders down…and that still doesn’t seem real!In the first 13 months after my 38 days in the hospital, I posted 15 items to my blog totaling 16,666 words and taking 88 minutes to read.For the 9 months since that last post {“Hanging…
“Hanging in” has become my standard reply when anyone asks “How are you doing?” whether it be face-to-face, on the phone, or in a message or text. It addresses not only how I’m doing physically and mentally, but also how I’m living my life day-to-day. Often times the question includes “are you continuing to improve?”…
…This one is the “Coming Home from the Hospital Anniversary.” (With much more to celebrate than the earlier anniversary…when Transverse myelitis ambushed me on 9/17/23….4 days after my seventy-fifth birthday.) On October 25, 2023 I came home from the Meyer Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Hospital to Apt B-307 at The Abbey Apartments in Springfield, MO. I…
Showers used to be so refreshing almost every time…especially on those days when I’d sweated thru a tee shirt or two.But now I live in a Transverse myelitis world. “Refreshing” is NOT the right word to describe the feeling after a taking a shower sitting on a chair.“Tired” is. The last refreshing shower that I…
This weekend is a big deal for both me and Shelly. I’m “home alone” for three nights while she is in the Wichita area celebrating her first born’s 40th birthday. Like several things that have been on my calendar since I came home on 10/25/23 after 34 nights in hospitals, it just wasn’t in the…
I’ve been having trouble getting this started. This is a hard “Anniversary” to think about.It has been some kind of year. It started on Sunday 9/17/23 with a tingling in my feet, that moved up my legs a bit that took us to the ER.The next morning I woke up paralyzed from the shoulders down….
On Sept 18, 2023 I woke up in the Critical Decision Unit at Cox South hospital and was paralyzed from the shoulders down. I couldn’t move a finger. My diagnosis is Idiopathic Acute Transverse Myelitis. (John Hopkins says there are 1,400 cases of TM annually in the US.) See Part 1 (A thru L) HERE…
…especially when the laxative doesn’t seem to do much. In Part 1 of “Thru the alphabet…” I promised that bowel challenges would get their own blog piece given that “dysfunctional anal sphincter activities” are characteristic of Transverse Myelitis. {Warning: there is a long list of synonyms for bowel movements. This piece will include many of…
On Sept 18, 2023 I woke up in the Critical Decision Unit at Cox South hospital and was paralyzed from the shoulders down. I couldn’t move a finger. My diagnosis is Idiopathic Acute Transverse Myelitis. (John Hopkins says there are 1,400 cases of TM annually in the US.) See Part 1 (A thru L) here…
A = Ambushed On 9/17/23 I woke up at home after an evening of live music from 6 bands and late night pancakes smothered in strawberries and whipped cream at IHOP. (one of the scarce 24 hour places in a post-covid world) The next morning I woke up in the Critical Decision Unit at Cox…