Phillip Sherwood

I will have to admit that the past four months have been my toughest struggle since coming home from the accident. It seems like when it rains, it dumps everything all at once. I’ve been bombarded with health, emotional and physical pain, and just things not going smoothly but I know I mustn’t give up in my struggle to overcome these perpetual endless obstacles put before me that just sap my innermost strength. Each negative variable compounds on one another creating a synergistic effect that challenges my success of even the simplest automatic task of my being. I’m not sure if my situation is easier to deal with by myself or within the company of a companion. The frustration that comes from not knowing what is physically happening on the inside so I can know how to remedy what ails me creates a feeling of helplessness and loss of control of my own being is an experience I’ve never faced before in my life. The feeling of vulnerability now contrasts that of my feeling of being bulletproof back in my 20’s as a young warrior. Instead of fellow soldiers to take arms in a mutual battle for survival is now replaced with a team of medical and psychological doctors interlinked by common databases and machines that produce test results. My enemies are now microscopic and invisible to the naked eye making their lethality to cause irreparable harm more potent than any combat system found on the modern day battlefield. I was a soldier in uniform fighting for my country and the beliefs that make us the proud world leaders that we are and although my uniform is hung in the closet now, I have still a soldier’s strength to fight just as tenaciously on this vicious new arena. This week is the first week in four months I’ve had the physical strength to make it through a day at work with a full workout in the gym afterwards. It may be a coincidence because Teddy at work brought me cinnamon rolls from a left over meeting this morning but I’ll take a victory any way I can get it to help me chip away at this feeling of well-being deficit I’m in.

Yesterday I was diagnosed as having hypothyroidism from my blood tests which fully accounts for the extreme swelling in my legs, fatigue and weight gain. The doctor prescribed me T4 medication for 90-days and said I should start feeling better shortly. I’ve been spending most of the nights since coming home with my legs propped up as high as I can physically get them to help with the drainage. I had my first appointment with a new physical therapist that specializes in Lymphatic Drainage Therapy (LDT) the other day so I have an all out assault in reducing this swelling. LDT assists in many things such as: involuntary muscle spasms, chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, stagnant fluid in the skin, to name just a few. My spasms have already begun to reduce and are more manageable proportionate to the reduction of the swelling. I’m resting quite a bit and starting like I’m going to pull out of this slump. Also I have resolution with the doctor whose nurse was so disrespectful to me. The doctor made her apologize to me for her disregard to my health & welfare. Jack and Bob are happy to be back together and are wrestling a lot now. The water fountain/statue in front of the house is working great and the landscaping will begin in mid to late August.

I’m here at Ocean City, MD really enjoying the beach with my family. This is the beach I would come to while growing up as a child and not much has changed in the last 40 years. Last night strolling down the board walk was quite the experience in the diversity of people there. I met and talked with many because I couldn’t resist hearing their stories of where they were from and how they came to being there. Today I went down to where the ocean breaks on the beach with the aid of a special beach wheelchair with big balloon tires. I enjoyed the soothing sounds of the waves crashing on the shore line in the massage salon but with a nice cool ocean breeze blowing carrying the smell of salt water in the air. I finally got some color on these chicken white legs of mine. I’ve been getting some good and much needed rest with ample opportunity to raise my legs and let the constant swelling subside a bit. The swelling seems to be worsening as the rate at which they refill is increasing. The right leg is now more swollen than the left which is opposite of what the situation was a year ago. I’m experimenting with updating my website via my iPhone but the edit tool to do so is too cumbersome so I will stick with using my facebook page for the quick updates. It’s time to grab some dinner and seafood is on the top of my menu.

Today was spent visiting our nations’ capitol and some of the surrounding museums while the temperature rose to near record highs of 102 degrees for this area. The metal rims on my wheelchair got so hot that they blistered my left fingers. I always learn something new when I play tourist in the own backyard I grew up in. The biggest difference now is that when I go downtown, it is rare to hear English spoken as a persons’ primary language. The ethnic diversity of this area is nice when it comes to wanting to branch out and taste different types of foods. After a quick tour of the capitol building, my mother, two nephews and a friend of my nephew and I went to see the new Indian museum to be followed by the Air & Space museum. Everything was not only wheelchair accessible but also wheelchair friendly.

While using one of the restrooms reserved for a family to do a self-catheterization, I was horrified to see I was filling the bag with thick blood clots and obviously bloody urine. The frequency and severity of this has been increasing over the past two months but I felt before going any further I pop into the ER near where my mother lives and get checked out. Fate would have it that when it was time to provide a urine specimen to the doctor, all was clear as a bell. The blood and urine tests came back negative for an infection of any kind so the doctor believed it is a complication from the high dosage of blood thinners I’m taking but recommended to me I make an appointment with my urologist when I get home.

I brought my cat Jack with me and he is having a ball exploring all the new surroundings in my mother’s hose that dwarfs mine in comparison. Tomorrow we’re heading to the beach in Ocean City, MD where I always went as a child growing up here in Maryland. Jack gets to go too. The other day we all went to the Kennedy Center to see the play Mary Poppins and truthfully I was very impressed. I can’t say I really enjoyed the fact that it was a musical but the theatrical stage effects were very impressive. Yesterday we went to the Cunningham Falls State Park and its strange experience to be in a public place that was so regimented and strictly controlled. I’ve also been enjoying the reaping of the benefits of my home automation system from here and am glad to note it’s working as advertised.