New Year's Eve

Well here my kidney stone problem had been silent for months, almost a year. I as did the doctors, knew it would flair up again as it was still there. They wanted to do more blasting of it, unfortunately such was not the case to be. Well I mentioned them in my blog a few days ago and today the kidney stone and today I was able to welcome the big guy back into my life. I felt the pain once again so that gives me another issue to deal with. It isn't new though as the doctor knew it was not going away and only going to return. I was just hoping it would wait about another 6 months. Now I will make arrangements to see my specialist for that. I have to see another doctor for a procedure in two and a half weeks, not related to my therapy or recent surgery. It is a different matter but one I think will be done with and I will be able to cross that villain off the list completely. That will leave the kidney stone and physical therapy only, then of course the headaches and sleeping. I think those will remain for a while in my life, my new friends if you will. Sleeping has become a bit odd again lately, waking up after a few hours and then up and down and no restful periods again. This is something I got use to once and I can do it again. I can do all things with God who gives me the strength to do what I am doing in life. He has brought me this far and will continue to give me guidance and strength in life. With that I have found a lot of peace and comfort. Of course the driving is still an issue. I have noticed that those who do give me rides, some let out their frustration and I understand that. They I do not think realize it shows and that too is ok as I am grateful, very grateful. Have a Blessed New Year!

December 30

Well unfortunately I did not make it to physical therapy today so no .8 of a mile. I will say that with the weather fronts and the high winds with snow has been terrible on my head for headaches. A few more days off and back to teaching. Life is going well over all though. I did my exercises at home though including the treadmill. I try to do as much as I can. The last few nights have been interesting to say the least for sleep. I watched The Battle of the Bulge, an old classic.

December 29, 2009

No there is nothing wrong with the date, it is one year ago today. One year ago today I was sitting in the Emergency Room of Unity Hospital with a left leg that was paralyzed for no reason. They finally took me in and did an MRI only to tell me that "I was fine and there was NOTHING wrong with me." So they sent me home with no recommendations. I spent seven hours there and I remember the physicians assistant asking me if I was sure it was not psychosomatic. Though insulted by that, as if I had nothing better to do than sit in an Emergency Room for seven hours. What was also funny is just before one year ago today Beth had told me that 2009 would definitely be a better year for me health wise than 2008. See in 2008 I was diagnosed with diverticulitis and a kidney stone about the size of a golf ball. The type of stone was called a stag horn and I endured 3 blasting's in the year to try and deal with it plus I suffered from sciatica nerve damage and ended up in the Emergency Room from it. So 2008 was an interesting year and unfortunately one year ago this temporary paralysis was the first sign of what was to be a not so good year after all. Anyway though 2009 was not a better health year for me I sit now and have no doubt that 2010 will most definitely be a better year health wise. I thought it funny how we are facing the start of 2010 in just a few days and how a year ago we thought nothing of what I was experiencing with my leg. What a year it has been, what I have learned and how I have grown. I thank one and all for your help. Tomorrow I have my physical therapy and I am shooting for .85 of a mile on the bike. I would love to do a mile but that would be doing 5 miles an hour on the bike. Who knows we will see and I will let you know........

Full Day

Well to start with I awoke to about three or four inches of snow and ventured off for breakfast with a friend. Next stop was my therapy and Andy put me to work again. I made it all the way up to .8 miles in my 12 minutes. He has increased my other exercises for either weights or repetitions so I can build strength and usage of the leg back. I do notice improvements each time I go. Sometimes like today they may only be slight but none the less they are forward and that is all that matters to me. Once home I shoveled the driveway where it wasn't plowed. I did push myself but that should not surprise anyone. It was tiring and I came in to do some client work about 2. Well needless to say like usual as I was working off I went as my energy went out of me. Next thing I know it was 3:30 and it took me to 4:00 to get my energy back and so I could be up and running. I looked outside and as predicted we had and are still getting that lovely lake affect snow. I am just so eager to awake tomorrow morning to our new fallen snow.

The Day after Christmas

Well a miracle of Christmas this year for me is just being here. It is nice not having to get up and get going for the day. Sit, relax a bit and do something that Beth loves to do, read. Of course my like of material is a bit different. She brought a book about the criminal profiling written by one of the original founders for the FBI. It was fantastic to read and I enjoyed every minute of it. I realized why I love psychology so much and why I went on to getting the PhD's. We are so uniquely made and so interesting to watch. I often reflect back upon my day and how I have handled it. When I walked for the mail today I watched as I tried to take a step normally and could not. Realizing that I was made to take steps and could not and may not walk in a normal way again. Then I started thinking about my age and how as we get older our bodies do not work quite as well. As my thoughts continued I thought that I will make the most of my therapy and gather back as much of my normal as I can get and go from there. I also realized that still after five months of recovery still at 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon I get tired and feel worn to the point of needing a nap. My problem is that if I give into the need after about one and a half hours of sleep I wake up but as so relaxed all I want to do is go back to sleep. I have to fight like anything to get myself up and moving. Once I am up and moving around for about fifteen minutes I am like recharged with energy and ready to go. This may never change as the doctors have told me already. I will learn to work this into my day as I have already begun to do. I just do not want people thinking I am lazy, which I know comes from how I was raised.

Therapy day before Christmas

Well as I reported before my new challenge on the exercise bike is distance and today in my 12 minutes of time I made it to 3/4 of a mile. I am hoping to make it to a full mile in that time by the first of the year. That means that I can pedal at a speed of 5 miles per hour which is quite an accomplishment with what was once a paralyzed left leg. Then I did my weight lifting and instead of doing three sets of ten Andy added one more set so I now do four sets of ten. Andy added a few other things increasing my therapy which I love because I like to push and be pushed to accomplish. Comes from my childhood. When we end our session he hooks me up to the electrical stim machine which stimulates the muscles in my left foot to come to life and enable me to straighten my left foot, which I have been unable to do since last April. Well today when he hooked it up I was able to gain complete movement as I have never been able to do before. The visit was a great Christmas gift all in itself. I am so thankful to all and their help this year and what a year it has been. Between enduring the kidney stones for the last one and a half years, sciatica nerve damage and then the brain tumor it has still been a wonderful year with so much Blessing.

Neurologist's update

Well I have mixed emotions to say the least. Not having suffered a seizure in six months so I was praying that the doctor would tell me I could drive again in one, two or even three months. Also the medication I am taking for anti-seizure is Keppra. I am on 250 mg once a day, I once was on 1,500 mg a day so that is quite a change. So the doctor told me that the 250 mg was a dose that would only last about 6 hours. This means that taking it at 6 AM by noon my body was on its own for preventing a seizure. Lesson is that I no longer need the medicine. I loved hearing that message. Then I asked about driving only to hear that I cannot drive until the end of June time frame. I was defeated, feeling totally defeated. All I heard was "Phil for the next six months you need to ask for rides everywhere you want to go." I have already been a hindrance to enough people and here I have to continue! I hate it, absolutely hate it! What is worse is there is nothing I can do about it but accept it. I hate acceptance, never liked it at all. That being said, yes I will 'learn' to accept the no drive somehow. People have been so helpful they really have and I pray all will continue to be there.

So, that being that the doctor talked and showed me the brain and tumor. His screens are two flat screens each about 25 inches side by side for his computer. He pulled up my MRI from before showing the tumor and it was a big one. Then he showed me the MRI from a few months ago and we see the brain growth. The brain has grown back to occupy about 1/2 the tumor area. I asked the doctor if the brain would continue to expand and occupy the remaining empty area. To my surprise the doctor told me that the brain would not grow back and take back the area that was once occupied by the tumor. So bottom line is the brain is done doing what it will be doing upstairs sort to speak.

Now moving on to therapy. I asked the neurologist if I should continue physical therapy. My thinking was if the brain is not going to take back its space then my regaining use might not increase either. Well my neurologist asked me if I was making gains in my therapy and I responded yes I was. He said that I should continue the therapy then. He was very encouraging here as he said not only can I make gains up to a year but up to a year and a half which is six months more than I previously understood. That is good as I feel I can make even more strides in using my leg.

My neurologist looked at my afo brace for the leg and told me about a foot device that will send electrical stimulation as I walk to help the foot pick itself up as I walk. He said he did not think it would be covered by insurance so I asked how much it would cost. He told me it would cost between 2 and 3 thousand dollars. Wow! That is a bit much, so I plan on talking to my benefit people and see if I can get at least two thirds of it paid for by insurance so I can possibly get one. I honestly feel they owe me that much for all I have been through. Even if I cannot get one I will still make as many gains as I can, with or without them. I just felt so defeated when they said another six months.

I don't mean to complain really I don't but I have my private practice of my clinical counseling and teaching. It is full life and a busy one when I am driving so you can imagine what it is like trying to do that when I cannot drive. I have been limiting seeing clients to only two days a week so I could arrange rides and such. With the expenses accompanied with my private practice I was really hoping to increase to three days a week for clients but I would really need to have free access to come and go. Unfortunately I will not have that freedom so I am revisiting the schedule for teaching and my practice. Christmas is upon us and that too was hard because no matter what I wanted to do I had to talk to someone, arrange schedules and then try to accomplish it. Not having the ability to just go, like working on something in the house. Normally I could just hop in the car and run to the store if I needed something, not now.

With our recent snow fall I went out to try and shovel a bit. Not gonna happen. I tried but I was not able to really accomplish much at all. That does not mean I am not going to push and try again as I will. I am grateful to be here and have those around me who love and care for and about me. So here it is getting late and I need to wrap things up so I can head off to bed. I am wondering if the space in my brain area stays will that cause my headaches to continue for the remainder of my life? I can learn to live with that too I guess.