Phillip Sherwood

I had the day off of work on Friday which worked out well because I had a day full of personal appointments. I started the day by having to clean up a nasty hairball Bob left me sometime during the night. I’m kind of perplexed about this because the entire week I was gone, he didn’t throw up a single time but when I’m here he averages one per day. I’m not sure what that’s all about. After HAZMAT clean-up was done, I fixed myself a hot green tea and a bowl of Cheerios then jumped in the shower. I made it to my appointment with my hair engineer Denise on time and she cleaned up the rock star mop I was wearing on top of my head. I came home to do a session on my stim-bike as a warm up to my PT appointment scheduled for 3pm. When I arrived for my appointment, I already had a good sweat going that carried into the Frankenstein boot scootin’ boogie I was about to endure. I am getting better at doing laps up and back on the parallel bars but my left foot doesn’t lift up and step out as well as the right. The therapist says that’s common but it would be much more efficient if they both worked as advertised. Either way, I get a good cardio & strength workout by the end of the session.

After my therapy session, I had enough time to cool down and make it to my massage appointment that I always look forward to beginning right as the previous session ends. Although my back hasn’t been hurting much these past two weeks, it was still all knotted up and needed lot of kneading like lumpy bread dough. I didn’t take my anti-spaz meds before my session because my legs felt really loose but when she commenced to do her reflexology on the bottom of my feet, she would hit a nerve bundle that would cause my leg to do a Bruce Lee super technical karate kick. I asked her how someone without a spinal cord injury would react when she hits that spot and interestingly she said they usually wince in pain. That makes sense then why my leg would jump out like that as an autonomic response similar to when the doctor inserted the needle into my toe to inject the Lidocaine before my toenail procedure.

The massage sessions have to be the quickest hour on the planet but I got up and head out to meet Julia and Teen over at Starbucks for a snack and coffee. Teen is the chef over at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens and made me a batch of Bolivian salteñas during the week. She calls them Bolivian Dim Sum but I always compared then to Bolivian Hot Pockets. Well, they are beef with raisins, olive, peas, potato and hardboiled egg encased in a doughy exterior. They are very difficult to make; so much that my Bolivian ex-wife wouldn’t even make them. She’d rather prepare a seven course meal instead. When I bit into the first salteña, I immediately transcended back to the streets of Bolivia and remembered the little pastry shop I use to buy them from they turned out that good! We all then left Starbucks and caravanned to see the progress on the house and low & behold the roof was done like Jesus (pronounced Hay Sus) the foreman said. Ironic a carpenter named Jesus. This week they should work on the HVAC, electrical and plumbing.

Last night I went to visit Curtis and Melisa and Curtis seems to be doing much better these days. He had a motorized ball pitcher he was launching at the boys to practice their fielding and hitting. I thought this was great. He and I went to his garage and did a little maintenance on my wheelchair and filled the tires with air. Later in the afternoon while sitting on his porch, one of my tires blew and I was like “oh crap”. Curtis had a spare wheel that fit my chair and I said to him “this couldn’t have happened at a better place”. Immediately his son quipped, “you could have popped your tire in a tire store”. True as it may, I was thinking of all the places this would have been a disaster. I need to add a tube repair kit to my backpack soon. Melisa prepared a great dinner and afterwards plopped down on the couch to watch the Alabama football game. Melisa positioned the coffee table perfect for us then lifted both Curtis’s and my feet up onto the table and placed pillows beneath them. I was thinking to myself, does it get any better than this? Life for the moment was gooooooood.

I haven’t had an episode of incontinence in several days or nights lately. This morning’s IC was about 750-800cc and not a single drop went into the leg bag. I think it’s time to go without the “external catcher now” however I will carry a change of clothes with me in the car for just in case. I’m heading out to the theater in a bit to catch a movie. Tomorrow I’ve been invited to go to my friend Kevin Mobley’s house for an outdoor grill out and I’m really looking forward to that. Well, time to finish folding all the clothes I’ve washed and get into some of them and head out the door… phillip