Saturday, August 13, 2011

Walking the walk, visiting the mountain: taking a break from rehab for a little Whistler vacation

To quote Jim Ross, and who better to steal a sentence from than a legendary WWE announcer, business is about to pick up.
Carol-Ann and I are spending the weekend in Whistler. It's our first vacation since this whole cancer/back surgery thing bulldogged its way into our lives back in October. (NOTE TO BAD GUYS: Be wary of any skulduggery at our home, since we have a full SWAT team in place.)
We slept in today and then meandered around the village. I'm  back at the room resting; Carol-Ann has a friend up here, so she's hanging with her, getting into no good, no doubt.
She's finally over her bout of laryngitis and starting to feel like herself again. This whole mess has beaten her up physically, and not surprisingly, her body shut down for a time.
It's been an interesting week. I'm starting to spend less and less time using the walker to get around. At the house, I'm going freestyle for hours on end. Out and about, I'm using Evander, my cane, more frequency.
I Evandered it around GF Strong on Thursday, during my visit to see Dr. Brad Hallam, our psychologist.   Dr. Hallam seemed to be pretty pleased with how I'm dealing with my guilt and frustration and how I botched my driver's exam. I have a great faith in him; it's always good for me to check in with him to see how I'm doing. To think that this hasn't messed with my emotions and my mind as much as my body is foolish.
I got a chance during the stop in with several of the physios and rehab assistants who I had worked with during my two-plus months there, and the response was inspiring.
Derek was a rehab assistant during my final of three stay at the Vancouver physical rehab clinic. I Evandered it into the spine gym and he immediately gave me, "Look at you...look at you!!!"
Derek's a straight forward dude, and maybe the straightest of the straight forward. He's not a cheap compliment guy. He's a "If you're 10 minutes early for a session with him then you're five minutes late," type.
You get the idea.
He had always been positive about my prospects and I reminded him of that, telling him that he was one of the people at GF who told me that I was going to be able to walk again.
His response? "It doesn't make it any less exciting to see it, does it?"
Pretty cool.
After that, I had a session with our at-home physio, Paula Peres, and we Evandered it six blocks. That's the farthest I've gone so far.
The down news, in all of this, is that my body is continuing to break down a little. Paula thinks I've got a strained right hamstring, and has me icing it a few times a day. My back is also a little achy. It's logical, since I'm doing more and more every day after being largely sedentary for six months.



1 comment:

  1. Choosing a mountain as your location for a break proves you are working very hard, Super Steve. Good metaphor. Always the writer. Good on The Ewens. Keep climbing...

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