Phillip Sherwood

This weekend is the final playoff weekend where the best two teams of the NFL will head off to the super bowl; the event that finalizes their entire season’s efforts to do their best to be their best. Every day is like the super bowl for me. I wake up in the morning with extreme fatigue and pain but know I have to find the inner strength to get up and start my day. It’s been real difficult lately in reaching down deep into my intestinal fortitude and harnessing that burst of energy to get up and going. It’s almost like those big booster rockets of the space shuttle that gets it up and headed through the thick resistance of earth’s atmosphere where its momentum will carry it through its mission. I have a new baby mackerel tabby I named Jack that is 7½ weeks old and I’ve been enjoying watching his antics as he discovers his new world. I rescued him from the local animal shelter to give Bob my other cat some company.

As of yesterday I have now been in my new house exactly one month and it’s taken a lot of work to get things where they are now in both functionality and organized. There’s still a lot left to do but I’m at the point where I am far better off than when I was living in the cramped apartment. I’ve had a lot of help from close friends and co-workers and getting things the way I want them in the house. I haven’t been able to start on the home automation part yet but I have configured several items through remote control to make things easier. I’m almost at the point now where I’ll need a carpenter and electrician soon to begin some larger projects the builder would not do to accommodate either my condition or need. Shortly I’ll be having the final modification done to my truck and get the chair lift installed into the truck bed. This lift mounts in the bed and has an arm (boom) that swings over the side to hook up my chair and lift it up and into the bed. Once that is done, I will be able to utilize my truck more often.

My shoulder pain and spasms have been much better lately. The extreme swelling in my right leg is finally going down but the Lovenox blood thinning injections have left my belly with very few places not yet bruised however I did prepare for this and increased the surface area to allow me more injection site options. I am very well supplied with medicine and medical sustainment materials from the VA. I will be heading back to the gym tomorrow finally after having been told by my doctor to cool it for awhile while waiting for the pain pump to “anchor in” and become stable enough to handle the extra stresses I’ll induce to my body and abdominal and lumbar area. I’m back on my bi-weekly massage schedule now too and that this past Friday’s session was a real workout. It’s late and I need to prep for bed. Now that the storm from moving and all the annual medical exams and acute medical needs have been met for the moment, I can finally relax some and set a more rhythmic pace I can maintain until summer vacation.

I had an appointment at the VA Hospital in Augusta, VA for my annual medical evaluation at their Spinal Cord Injury clinic. I got to the hotel late Wednesday evening after getting off from work earlier that day and hitting the road. Although the location of my new house shaves about 20-30 minutes off the trip now, it’s still a long and very difficult drive to make solo but it leaves one lots of time to think and contemplate stuff. I had to get up early enough to wake up the roosters and get over to the clinic to begin my rounds but I started with my labs so I could get something to eat after my 12-hour fasting. Next was to take my weight and it turned out I dropped five more pounds since my last visit and 25 since my last annual eval! My cholesterol is now steady in the 160’s so I’ve been told to stop taking my SimvaStatin cholesterol medication. Next was my Urodynamic exam which is a very intrusive examination of the entire renal system. This test thoroughly checks the bladder and kidney function. Luckily all is still well and the elasticity of the bladder is in good shape. This test always makes me nervous in receiving potential negative test results because my bladder on occasion will overfill up to 2½ times the recommended max amount because my kidneys have the ability to go into the turbo mode at times.

I had a really good follow-up session with my psychologist with whom I have a great relation with and am able to communicate effectively. I realized after this session with him I need to not only work on some new and personal coping methods for my situation but also it’s time to get a new psych team here in Huntsville that can actually help me. The one area of great concern with my primary doctor is the new development or changing status of existing blood clots in my right leg that cause it to swell up huge during the day causing the need for me to elevate it for sometimes up to 12-hours just to be able to get a shoe back on or off of it. After several hours of consultation with her (My doctor) peer group, the collaborative opinion of the group to temporarily put me on a mega dose of 100 mg/ml Lovenox injections twice daily with a 5mg dose of Coumadin (Warfarin) blood thinners for two weeks and follow-up with blood tests. This dosage is by far more than I’ve ever taken before and the risk is having a cerebral embolism so for the moment I’m on thin ice but with close monitoring I should be back in the clear shortly.

Today I came in for a scheduled change in the medication for my implanted pain pump that required me to have all the remaining medication siphoned from the pump and catheter going up my spinal cord and refill with 40cc’s of a new pain killer & anti-spaz medication. I was admitted to the Huntsville Hospital this afternoon by my doctor to be closely monitored for 24-hours for any complications. My pain doctor also gave me a “bolus” or extra kicker of meds to “prime the process” that looped me out and nearly made me toss my cookies. It took two full 12 oz. cans of high test Mountain Dew to keep my stomach calm enough to make the trip from the HSV Pain Center on the South side of the street to the main hospital on the North side of the street via the long and freezing cold connecting tunnel. I feel like I live two different lives now. One inside the hospital and the other outside. I was very exhausted after returning back from my trip to the Augusta VA. I slept as late as I could this morning knowing what my day was going to consist of with the zero rest hospital atmosphere. As for the rest of the things going on with the house, I’ll have to get to that later since it’s now past 9pm and I need to prep for bed and my night of continued interrupted sleep until the sun comes up.

It’s been a while now since I last wrote since so much has been going on. With a lot of help from friends, I was able to get the apartment packed, moved and unpacked into the new house. I’d like to give a few shouts out to DJ Brazelton, Nick Nickles and Jama Blair who worked their booties off. Closing on December 23rd went well but lasted much longer than I thought it would. I hired the same movers who moved the safe the last time to move it again except after it was done and they left, I discovered it blocked the drop down ladder access to the garage. My mother came down for the week during the holidays to help unpack and organize. It’s amazing the amount we accomplished together but we put in some seriously long days and nights. It’s functional, everything is unpacked, and now put away into its own organized place. My 25ft enclosed racing trailer sits totally loaded with trash and things for donation that need to be tended to however with temperatures down in the teens, dealing with it can wait.

I had to switch into my temp chair the other day and had forgotten how different the balance is on that one and flipped over and hit my head real hard leaving me nauseous the rest of the day. I must have felt every vertebra as well like a xylophone being played by a gorilla. I have only had time for the stim bike once in the past three weeks and the stander a couple of times at that. My right shoulder is killing me and for the first time ever I think I’m really looking forward to a shot in the AC joint. I’m getting prepped for my annual follow-up appointment at the VA in Augusta, GA. Bob the cat will be left alone by himself in the house for the first time. He’s already freaked out enough as it is. I have to keep reminding myself now that the move is over and I’m going to be in this house for a long time so I need to pace myself for the long run. Time to run and get some dinner before the appliance lady shows up to give me my kitchen appliance demo. Picyures are forthcoming.