It's Back to Day One Again

I sat up for the first time in nearly two weeks yesterday. Wow, what a pleasure! My sitting time was of course severely limited. I got out of bed, into wheelchair and then in the back of my car. Why was I in the back of my car and sitting up? Simple: insurance refused to pay for an ambulance to transport me to and back from wound care. If I paid for such a luxury it would have been about $1,200. This does not include th cost of the appointment at wound care--also not covered. Hence I was transported laying down in the back of my car. If we got in an accident screwed does not even begin to describe the consequences.

To say I was stressed out yesterday is an understatement. I did not sleep the night before nor could I eat the morning of the appointment. Accompanied my brother and brother-in-law, all went well. The bottom line is that both wounds are healing nicely. The surgeon is a funny lady--she described the wounds as "beautiful". Flowers I are beautiful wounds are not. Regardless, my "beautiful" wounds needed little debridement hence I lost little blood--my my major concern as the last debridement was a gruesome bloody affair. The time table for healing is vague as we humans, especially those paralyzed, do not heal on a set schedule. I gently pushed for a time frame and was told before the end of 2011. Shock spread across my face and I said I needed something more precise. The surgeon replied with a somewhat less vague 2-6 months. This is fair--vague but I can at least wrap my mind around this. Aside from medical issues, I am still struggling with the great cost of my care. I have made zero progress in this regard. This is alarming though a short term problem. My only success came yesterday when I expressed concern about the cost of bandages for the wound vacuum--I was thrilled to see the wound care specialist used one bandage bundle for both wounds thus saving me 50% of supplies. As I was leaving this persona gave me a big box of supplies--sample she said. Score one for the home team.

I must be getting better physically as my choice of reading is improving by leaps and bounds. I am back to reading typical academic discourse, stories about disability rights abuse, and most importantly getting pissed off. I am thus starting to look beyond my own tale of woe and thinking--a healthy sign. Given this, I will start to write along two lines--posts about my progress and compromised life and a return to disability rights as civil rights. In essence, I am back mentally and resigned to my life as it is for the next few months--yes, the next 2-6 months. I have also not given up on ski season or teaching in the Spring--maybe I can handle one class and some ski runs in February. I need to have reasonable hopes and start writing about disability rights as civil rights. I know this viewpoint will not be found in the mainstream media and have read a few articles from the NY Times in recent days that have annoyed me to no end. On such story had to do with paraolympians competing with so called able bodied athletes. Apparently this is becoming more common though at times controversial. What the NY Times failed to mention is the only time controversy arises is when an athlete with a disability soundly defeats his or her non disabled competitors. When this happens all of a sudden any adaptive device represents an unfair advantage. In a word, bull. Ah, it is good to be getting back to my feisty self.