Phillip Sherwood

The weekend went very well as I was able to capitalize on a clear schedule to allow me to rest and that is what I did a lot of. I woke up Monday morning with a fully charged set of Energizers. Curtis came over to the house Saturday for a visit and to check out my new motorized standing chair and although he’s about 5” taller than me, it got him standing pretty well with about a 20 degree bend in his knees. This was the first time in over a year he’s stood in an upright position and he had no complications. He is now looking into getting a standing chair too. Curtis, his wife Melisa and I bounce a lot of ideas and information off of each other and it really has been helpful. They are both very resourceful.

On Sunday, I went to the builder’s office and spent the entire afternoon going over the house plans centimeter by centimeter. I found some more discrepancies that need to be either corrected or explained so by this Friday the final plans should be ready for signing. I spent all the rest of my weekend working with Webmaster Scooter Magee in enhancing this website. I don’t know HTML code very well but I’m learning and this site will just keep getting better. I had an appointment yesterday at the Spine and Neuro center of Huntsville to consult with the neurosurgeon Dr. Tao about the baclofen pump implantation. He didn’t recognize me but as soon as I heard his voice, it sent a chill down my spine. After a short dialogue, he appeared to remember and I told him that to this day the thoracotomy procedure he performed on me in the first surgery is the most painful problem I’ve had. I don’t believe I will have him perform this procedure on me for the simple fact that he only implants the device and does not perform the maintenance of refilling and regulating the device afterwards. I want a specialist who not only will implant the device but will maintain it afterwards and who too will have to live with this with me.

I went upstairs to the Pain Clinic on the 4^th floor to check on my appointment that fell through with a Dr. Roberts who meets my requirement so I am to be contacted shortly for my initial consult with him. They had me scheduled for a consult on August 7^th but never contacted me to advise me of that. I also stopped by the physical therapy section of the Spine and Neuro center and was shocked to see that not only do they not have any therapy equipment for quad/paraplegics but neither were their therapists experienced in this type of care. I was shocked without the awe. I need to get on to work. My team has been working very hard for weeks on preparing to present the after action review briefing on the first simulator to go through the complete testing cycle. As the Air Force would say… “I’m a dot!” (I’ll explain this on my next post… Phillip