Phillip Sherwood

I feel like I’ve been going 1,000 mph for the past several weeks like I’m trying to hold onto the tail of a hurricane. As long as I don’t spontaneously combust, I will be able to ride this out. This week was the frame-walk at the house marking a major milestone in the construction process. There were only a couple of changes needed however the vision as imagined on paper is becoming clearer to the eye every day. The brick, stone and mortar has been delivered and placed around the house and the drywall was delivered yesterday to be hung beginning Monday. This week I will need to go select all the interior/exterior lighting. At this pace it looks like meeting the December 23rd closing date will easily be made barring any major catastrophes.

I had my first consultation yesterday with Dr. Roberts from the Tennessee Valley Pain Center here in Huntsville, AL reference the surgical implantation of the Baclofen pump. On October 13th, I will return for a test to go through the lower lumbar region to see if the delivery method will be effective and also to determine which medication will be most effective before committing to implanting the pump as a solution to address my pain and spasticity. My goals are to eliminate the need for oral medication, have better control of the spasms and pain and enhance the quality of life. Given that, Dr. Roberts is optimistic they are achievable. Yesterday was also my bi-weekly massage and I was more in need of one than probably at any other time. My muscles were equivalent to a spaghetti and meatball dinner where the meatballs needed to be flattened out and mixed back into the spaghetti muscle fibers. The massage was so good that I ended up resting in bed for eleven hours and feel a million times better now.

My physical therapy this week consisted of Tuesday working with the Frankenstein feet and Friday getting back into the wheelchair drills. I used the manual standing chair which seemed more difficult than my original titanium chairs. My therapist will be changing up my therapy visits to start touching on several weak areas I have trouble with still. My last post touched on a suspected ulcer that developed on my outer left calf. It is healing at a snail’s pace. Any type of skin breakdown takes much longer to heal and is way more prone to infection due to the terribly impaired blood circulation. Given this, I was horrified when I found on my skin check the other night the deep rub burn I received from the different band I used to keep my legs together and not flailing wildly while on the Nu-Step exercise machine. I had no indication this was happening at the time during my hour long exercise routine on this machine.

This upcoming week doesn’t appear yet to be as full-throttle as the past several weeks have been. I don’t have any more trips planned for the next couple of weeks. Things are going relatively well and I continue to work hard to gain as much or as little as I can or at least not regress. The pictures I’ve included are of my Frankenstein PT workout. I will usually go up and back for approximately 45-minutes and stop once midway to drink some G2. The other picture is of the nice lady I met on the airplane flying back home from a weekend trip I took in July whose name is Julia. We’ve since remained in contact and meet occasionally for dinner or a smoothie at Starbucks. Her friend Teen who was also on the same flight took on the Pepsi Challenge to make Bolivian salteñas that turned out great!

It was this day back in 1993 that we lost several members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Night Stalkers) and Army DELTA FORCE soldiers during an intense battle in Mogadishu, Somalia. I’ve lost a lot of friends and fellow soldiers throughout my 23 year Army career and as each one left, each took a little part of me with them and I think of each one of them often. It drives me to not waste the precious gift of more time I’ve been given that many in this world we all knew once have been denied. As I continue to make the most out of what life has to offer in my daily struggles, I proudly do so in their memory. Night Stalkers Don’t Quit… Ever… phillip