January Update

Happy New Year to everyone!!!

I hope you all had a good time over the holidays.

I spent about a week in Raleigh/Cary and mostly spent time with my family. I also was able to take my nephew, Owen, to his first NC State basketball game at the PNC Arena. I also had my dad and Owen's dad/my brother in law come with us and I think everyone had a good time. NC State beat Saint Bonaventure pretty easily.

We got to the arena a little early and got to go to the locker room to meet Coach Gottfried and some of his staff and players.  Owen is still pretty young being only five, probably a little too young to appreciate the people he is meeting but that may change as he gets a little bit older and I hope to continue to get him to at least one game a year.

Owen & me at NCSU game

The holidays also got me a few weeks off from school after finishing my first semester in Project Management.  I earned a B for the semester and was glad to get the first two classes over and done with.  We start back up in the middle of January.

Some other good news is that the burns I suffered on my legs from the e-stim unit have finally healed and I am working on catching back up from the three months I lost, as it took that long to heal.  We are being a little more cautious this time around to lessen the chances of the burning occurring again. It always seems like I am doing pretty good, getting a little stronger and making a little bit of progress and then I have a setback.  It has been burns, fractures, infections and a few other things seem to pop up from time to time.  I have never been one for New Year resolutions but my goal for 2013 is to not have any other setbacks!  It is good to get back to the e-stim though.  It is still the therapy I am doing that has the most potential for good results.  I knew it would be a marathon and not a sprint to see what this therapy would amount to.  Even though I have lost about three months I do know it is changing my lower body. 

Recently I did go back and take a look at a picture of my legs before I started the therapy and one about six months in and you can see that my muscles are getting bigger and more defined--that is a good thing!  I knew that my muscle mass would increase but again it hopefully will eventually lead to voluntary movement. We will just have to stick with and see what happens but it will probably be another five to six months until I know and that is without any other setbacks.  It is good to sometimes be able to take a step back to see how things are changing because I do get frustrated with things, knowing the progress can be so slow and even feel like it is not occurring.  Taking a step back and looking at things like pictures is proof that I have made positive gains and fuels me to stick with it and hope for more.

Leg six months into e-stim

Leg before e-stim therapy