My Motorcycle Injuries

I gave a member of our church some advice a while ago. He's several years older than me and he's had some issues with his health over the past couple of years. We were talking about exercising and he mentioned that he was trying to do some push ups but he could barely do one. I gave him a suggestion involving a technique that I learned in physical therapy eleven years ago. One of my therapists taught me to do push ups on a kitchen counter. She taught me to lean on the counter at an angle with my arms stretched out and to push up and down away from the counter. My arm and leg were not healed enough or fit enough to do real push ups on the floor at that time, and the counter method helped me greatly as I sought to strengthen my upper body. This friend of mine at church was really happy to hear my advice and determined to give it a try. This past Sunday he told me that the counter method helped him greatly and that he had now moved up to doing regular push ups on the floor. I thin...

Overcoming physical trauma is a tough job. Those of us who are fortunate enough to receive medical attention are given great help toward survival and recovery. Those of us fortunate enough to take part in physical and/or occupational rehabilitation are doubly blessed. Unfortunately, these resources don't often last forever. Such was the case with my recovery from the motorcycle accident. I was basically expelled from the hospital when they realized that I didn't have a lot of financial resources to cover the medical care. I then received rehabilitation help for a couple of months before the insurance coverage ran out. What was left of me was someone who had made a good deal of progress in my recovery, but not nearly in a position to function normally or freely. I couldn't walk well yet, and my overall mobility and physical function was very much limited.  One of the things that I learned when I wound up alone at home for the bulk of each workday was that I had to take charg...

I mentioned a ministry related trip to the Middle East in a post about a year ago. I was supposed to go this past January, but the trip was cancelled last December due to the war in Gaza. It wasn't an issue of safety, but rather a problem with the fact that the flights were scheduled to go through Tel Aviv. The trip was rescheduled for this coming October, and although things remain bad over there, my contact in Israel says that things within the nation are safe enough. We will eventually be landing in Amman and I will be speaking in Jordan and Israel for two weeks. The trip involves an enormous amount of walking, with some of the terrain being uneven and rocky. I have to be cautious to be in good shape because I'll be speaking often and I won't be able to get the job done effectively if I'm feeling exhausted and beaten day after day. Consequently, I've been really diligent to exercise the past several months in order to prepare for such a physically demanding trip....

The holidays are coming soon, and on my wife's side of the family this means that everyone will be busy with countless details in order to get things like food, homes, and event details ready. It's all a little excessive, but why be all Scroogy about it on this blog when they get enough of it from me in person. Anyhoo, the whole planning thing caused me to think a little about the things that have been going on for me these past couple of months. I'm taking a trip overseas in early January (Turkey, Israel, and Jordon... don't ask). I've been exercising like it matters because the trip that I'm taking will require a lot of daily walking and I also have an A1C test coming up in late December. Also, I've been super careful about my eating in order to keep my blood glucose level in good shape. I often feel tired in an almost groggy way by midday, but I really need to be prepared for everything that I'll be going through within the next couple of months. Thes...

Time marches on. I had slacked off a little over the past several months concerning my exercise routine, but I’ve been back on track with all of it over the last month and a half. I started slowly, but I’ve been methodical about how I advance with it all because I’m no longer just a guy with a bunch of old motorcycle accident wounds. Yeah, I’m also a guy who turned sixty this summer. I feel that physically I’m pretty much fit and capable, but I find myself sometimes describing my abilities now with the term “for a guy my age”. Next up is me finding the need to use the term “in my day”. Uh-huh, there better not be any neighborhood kids wanting to mess around on my front lawn or I’ll go all Clint Eastwood on them. I still walk roughly five miles a day while also doing upper body work with weights, pushups, stretching, and some boxing equipment. None of it is very complex, but I try to keep things going for myself in a way that keeps the aftereffects of my injuries under control. It will ...

 I'll turn sixty in a couple of days. The motorcycle accident occurred when I was fifty years old. Ten years ago I was roughly 50 lbs. heavier than I am now and I had stopped exercising with any level of consistency. To be honest, none of that mattered to me. I was happy enough with everything in my life. However, I now keep my weight at a healthy level and I eat within fairly healthy standards because of the diabetes that was brought on by damage done to my pancreas in the accident. I also exercise regularly and it involves walking, stretching, pushups and weight lifting, along with some work on a punching bag.  I sometimes wonder what things would be like now if I hadn't been in such a horrific accident back then. I mean, would I be a heart attack waiting to happen? Would I be a plump guy who has trouble fitting into a booth at a restaurant? Would I have to resize my clothes every two years and wind up falsely claiming that jeans companies are making them smaller now?  ...

I get so tired of being tired. I woke up about four times last night. I haven't slept right since the accident, and last night was super annoying because I kept falling back asleep (lightly) and then waking up after just a little while. I got out of bed this morning and went through my exercise routine. It only took about forty-five minutes. Next up was breakfast, a ton of typing for my job, and working on some online Christmas shopping. I then had lunch, followed by some gardening work out in the front yard of my house. When I was finished I came inside to do some more online browsing. Sounds mundane, yes? Why then do I feel as though I've been hiking in the Andes for a week with no food or shelter? I hate the thought of going to bed tonight because I can't stand the torment involved in "sorta" sleeping. I feel so sore and burned out physically that it's starting to effect my mental aptitude. In other words, I'm feeling as though my mental state just isn...

I have done a lot of walking over the years since the accident. It started in physical therapy and continued at home after my therapy ended. I still do a lot of the things that they had me doing in therapy and I find that it all helps me to use the various muscles in my legs. The first thing that they had me doing involved walking sideways, but doing so between the parallel bars for safety. I still walk sideways for a certain distance daily and I feel that I still benefit from it. I also walk backwards quite a bit and that also seems to work on different muscles in my leg. Additionally, I walk for a certain distance doing leg lifts with each step, and I also “trot” for roughly 300 steps daily. I can’t really run, but I can trot fast enough to escape slow moving zombie hordes, should the need ever arise. I wear a Fitbit device to log my steps in order to make sure that I’m covering the necessary distance each day. I sometimes don’t wear it for weeks at a time because I’m fairly consiste...