Phillip Sherwood

The week’s pace slowed down enough for me to catch my breath a bit and with the four day weekend I have I think I will be ready to hit the ground running by Tuesday. This week I stepped up my exercise program on the ergo recumbent cycle and ergo hand cycle to one hour at a 300-cal burn. My swimming is coming along better too as my strokes are smoothing out. I need to find my swim workout bag that has my goggles and other training equipment. I’ve lightened up my original manual standing wheel chair by removing every non-essential piece possible. This afternoon after the Alabama – Ole Miss football game I plan to go on a wheelchair ride down at the park that has a 3-mile walking trail. The weather is nice and temps are in the mid-sixties. During my physical therapy on Tuesday, I was nearing the end of a really good session using the Frankenstein system when the back system came apart causing me to lurch forward in a flash. The metal bolt in the back sheered and luckily I was between the parallel bars or it would have been stop, drop and roll. It should be fixed by next week.

This Tuesday afternoon will be my first trial for the baclofen pump implant. The procedure will take about two hours and begin with the surgeon going into my lumbar spinal region like an epidural and insert a catheter threading it up to the T4/5 region between my shoulder blades. From there he will inject a pain medication to see how I react and if it works well enough to achieve the desired results. I tried reducing my intake of my anti-spaz meds slowly and increase the frequency and quantity of standing and E-stim bike but a few hours afterwards the legs would start spazzing bad enough to interfere with my transfers and interrupting my sleep. The dosage went back up to the max prescribed amount. My suspected mid-left calf ulcer and rope burn filet are healing very well albeit slow. Ever since moving to Northern Alabama, during this time of the year I would start getting sinus infections that would eventually become upper respiratory infections needing injections of steroids and antibiotics in order to get back to health. I didn’t have this problem in 2007 or 2008 but this morning I felt the onset when I woke up and after a conversation with Curtis, he recommended taking Mucinex before it takes hold. He said his doctor at the Shepherd Center recommended it.

I am looking into the Bruno modifications for my truck to now lift my wheelchair into the bed of the pickup after transfer to the truck seat as shown on http://www.bruno.com/pul-1100.html and a hydraulic topper system to protect the chair from the elements while driving as shown on http://www.bruno.com/pcl-1900.html. I need to get an estimate on how much it will cost so it may be a while before being able to do this. The max weight limit is 350 pounds so the motorized standing chair at work will be too heavy to use. The house is coming along well and the drywall is done on the inside and now the bricklayers have started on the outside. I went by Richard’s Lighting yesterday and selected all my interior & exterior lights and found the $2,400 builders credit was impossible to stay within. I ended up shelling out a little over $1,200 to close the purchase. I will do a walkthrough with my personal carpenter to look at the house and take measurements of the master and guest closets then the laundry room to build up customized shelving systems. I’m also looking for local fence builders to offer me quotes on building me a six foot privacy fence for the yard because the home builder’s cost was unreasonable. I’ve chosen the GE Profile front loading washer and dryer and also the GE 25.4 cubic foot refrigerator but I’m hoping to be able to pick up a good deal on them on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving). I’m now working on my “smart home” automated system. More on that later as I better define what I plan to control.