Phillip Sherwood

Sunday I went out to the house and checked on its progress and when I got there, the stone layers had just finished one of the front faces and was setting up to start on the second and final. On the inside, the second coat of paint was applied and almost all the doors were hung. On Monday, I was able to lock into a 30-year fixed rate loan at 4.875% for 60 days. Now the heat is on that they finish. I drove the truck on Sunday and it’s running great. It will come in handy when I start hauling my hand bike around provided the VA approves it.

I left Monday afternoon for the VA in Augusta, GA and the drive went relatively well however I ran into a bunch of stimulus new road construction and traffic in and around Atlanta. I was ready for the pillow to stop my head from falling about 100-miles before getting here. Since my appointment(s) here span several days, the VA Hospitality department provided me a room with a full kitchen suite at a local hotel with free wireless services to beat! Today Tuesday was a very busy day and 4pm got here too quick. I am having my new standing chair reevaluated by my physical therapist from when I was here as an inpatient and tweaking some things on it. Since this is the first chair of this type they’ve ordered from this company, they’re particularly interested in the good & bad points I’ve found. Basically it’s a great chair in the way of being able to stand spontaneously but the metric wheel hubs aren’t interchangeable with US wheels, it is wider, heavier and less maneuverable than the US made titanium chairs, fabric (seat upholstery and belts) are inferior quality are just a few of the negative points why I don’t use it as much as I’d like. Mostly because of the wheels but I’m going to have a local bike shop in Huntsville modify them with some new interchangeable parts my PT ordered today.

I also had to see my doctor to have a consultation for her to write me two letters of recommendation and necessity for getting a hand cycle and HISA home modification grant. The weight limit for the bike is 250 lbs. so I had to get an updated weight in my records since the last one I had was in January. Since the wheelbase on my manual chair was too wide, they had to weigh me using the hoist like I were a sack of potatoes. My weight was 234 but I’d just finished a big breakfast. Next I have to do the assessment interview with the Recreational Therapist that’s scheduled for tomorrow morning. Since she was the one who submitted my name for the US Paralympic Training Camp, I feel the interview will go well. The one thing going against me is the right shoulder pain I’m being treated for so I will need to write a summary of my physical activity then keep a training log until I come back for my annual exam in January and do the final trial of transferring into and out of the demo hand bike. I have a long day ahead of me for Wednesday to start off with 7am clinical work-ups before getting on to the rest of my business here.

This has been a loooooong and tiring week! I’ve achieved a couple new personal bests at the gym on both Monday and Wednesday evenings. I’m now doing an hour on my two aerobic machines which is my limit as far as my butt goes so now my goal is to accumulate the most amount of calories expended during this period. When I started, I would shoot for 160 calories in 30-35 minutes but now I’m into the mid to upper 300’s. My goal is to break into the 400’s but that may take some time to build up to because now when my hour is up I am totally wiped out with barely enough energy left to push the chair back to the car. My legs have been exceptionally active this week and making sleep difficult once again causing me to begin a lost sleep debt once again. Between work, gym and the new house, I’m pretty much busy from dawn to midnight.

Sunday I went to visit a new neighbor I will have who is an expert in home automation so I went to visit him at his home that’s about two blocks from mine and looked at his system. It gave me some additional ideas to consider. After the visit, we went down to my house and walked around to get a feel for the system’s layout and also to look to verify the pre-wiring of the doors & windows for sensor installation. I went for a pre-surgical psychological assessment on Tuesday which was a requirement by the surgeon’s malpractice insurance provider. The assessment was very long and almost as thorough as the psych eval I took to enter into the Special Operations Aviation Regiment known as the “Nightstalkers”. I had to take a written questionnaire that consisted over 350 questions some of which were utterly ridiculous in which I responded with an equally ridiculous answers that were never discussed during the interview. I will admit it was a very in-depth view into the looking glass.

Monday I leave out to the VA in Augusta for several days for a series of tests to check on my condition. It was just four days ago that marked the two year point since my accident and because I was so busy, I never really had time to reflect the moment and the progress I’ve made until now. I guess it’s just as well. I also plan on starting the ball rolling on getting a hand bike so that I can start participating in local events. For the next several weeks I will be moving along at a fast pace until Thanksgiving. The following week I will be at the Opryland hotel in Nashville to attend an International User’s Conference for Black Hawk helicopters.

Yesterday when I was at the house, I noticed they did the initial coat of paint, installed the doors and put up the trim. They weren’t as far along in the process I’d hoped they’d be but with all the rain we had last week, I think the days ahead of schedule was eaten up. I dedicated this weekend to finish the planning and resourcing for the Automated “Smart” Home system I plan to install. As luck would have it, I met another former Army Vet who also works on Redstone Arsenal that lives only two blocks from my new home being built and installed his own Smart Home system. I met him and his wife and was invited to see the system he built for their home. He also accompanied me to get a look at my home and review my plans and now I feel more confident about the project I’m about to undertake the moment I close on the house. Below is the list of capabilities I will automate, manage and control from my iPhone/iTouch:

1. Indoor/Outdoor Light Controls
2. Intercom System
3. Climate Control with Indoor/Outdoor Temperature Humidity Sensor
4. Front & Back yard Water Sprinkler Control System
5. Closed-Circuit TV Surveillance System
6. Door Strike Release
7. Security Sensors (Doors & Windows)
8. Entertainment System
a. AM/FM/CD/DVD/USB XM Radio Multi-Room Audio System
b. HDTV
c. DVR
d. Bluetooth/DVD/VCR Home Theater
9. Garage Door Openers
10. Window Shades
11. Fireplace & Blower
12. Remote Garage Door Opening
13. Remote Car Starting

I had a nice and relaxing weekend and that came to a screeching halt once I rolled into work and turned on my computer. Tonight at the gym will be another hour long aerobic session on the Nu-Step recumbent machine

Yesterday I had my first surgical procedure to check my candidacy for a baclofen pump implant and it was quite a bit different than I had imagined. I took my 6am anti-spaz meds but skipped the noon dose so I can evaluate the effectiveness of the new stuff I was to be given later that afternoon. At 3pm on Tuesday, I was prepped and brought into the HSV Spine & Neuro Center’s surgical room quickly remembering how cold it is in these places. I transferred from the gurney onto the operating table then over onto my belly. The site right above my left rear hip bone was cleaned then the doctor explained how he was going to numb the insertion point first then insert the long sharp needle directly into the lumbar section of my spinal cavity and inject a trial pain medication then close up and also that it may hurt a bit. I told him I won’t feel any pain but my lower body will and it will react proportionate to the pain stimulus and somebody better be ready to hold me down. With that, the first needle went in and it went deep. My left leg jumped violently and everything from my mid-section down felt as it was electrocuted. Again it didn’t physically hurt but remember nerves work off of electric activity and it seemed as if I was given a jolt of 89 gigavolts!

Within minutes afterwards I was wheeled into the recovery room and was connected to more monitoring equipment with the same eerie beeps and tones I hoped to never again hear in my life. Shortly after, I began to feel the euphoric onset of narcotics bring about and my rigor-mortis spasms that I’d been fighting with for the past six hours were gone. The strange thing was that I could feel the electrical agitation in my legs welling up like I do before a spasm explodes but the spasm never came. It was like when you have the hiccups and right before it hits, you can feel it building to a crescendo right before it busts loose… but it doesn’t. Entering my tiny little recovery area a familiar angel appeared with a big giant beautifully warm smile. It was my favorite NICU nurse Stephanie from when I was her patient nearly two years ago when all this began. She gave me a big giant bear hug and told my attending nurses they better take good care of me. About a year ago, she and some of her colleagues transferred over from the Neuro ICU to the Tennessee Valley Pain Center located in the new Neuro & Spine Center building. I was asked if I’d like anything to drink but I wasn’t thirsty when the nurse rephrased the question and said I had to show I could drink liquids. When she offered me a Mountain Dew, the deal was done.

The doctor came in and we discussed the procedure and what I was feeling. He instructed me to take note of the effect over the next 24-hours then released me to go home. Curtis dropped off his wife Melisa to drive me home and we talked about the progress of my home the entire way. I have to go back in a week for a follow-up and discuss the next step. Later last night the pain in my back by the fracture site began coming back but the spasms were still quiet. I went to bed not taking my evening anti-spaz meds and fell asleep quickly. I woke up about 2:30am having to pee then watched a little late night news. I fell back asleep somewhere shortly after 3:00am. It wasn’t long after that I was woken up by a serious of bad leg spasms requiring an immediate dose of anti-spaz meds. I fought them for another hour while sweating and writhing like I was going through detox or something so I took a Vicodan tablet that helped me get the last few hours of sleep I had left. Luckily today was a work from home day because I was in no shape to be able to get it together enough leave the house. I started feeling better by later in the afternoon so I went to the gym and had a killer workout. Time to go to bed… phillip