In 2015, Sam Heughan started MPC. For those of you who don't know, that stands for My Peak Challenge. mypeakchallenge.com/
I joined immediately. It got me thinking about my mobility and physical therapy. I hadn't been keeping up with the program because, well life happens and I needed actual physical therapy and hands on guidance to get me back on track. Doing the program on my own, I acquired a few injuries and was recovering from them and had once again stopped being able to do much. Then, as luck would have it, I moved. I mean truly moved. Packed up, sold the house I was living in in Texas and moved into a much better place in Louisiana, where my family is much closer.
My dad told me about the physical therapist he'd been going to and I got excited about getting back into a program that had just what I needed. So as soon as I got the insurance paperwork sorted out as far as I knew at the time...I made an appointment at the clinic/gym and started physical therapy. I'm finishing up the 5th week there.
I've got to get a brace again on my foot. I'm waiting for the insurance company to sort that out. I might need surgery, but for now just PT and the brace.
When I was younger, I loved exercise but hated physical therapy. Now, I choosing to enjoy both. Because I would much rather have pain, stiffness and soreness from a good workout than from no workout and anyone who has chronic pain and spasticity completely understands what I mean.
My birthday is coming up soon and I will be 50. How nifty is that? When I was younger, I never thought about long-term mobility or not being able to do what I wanted to do, I just did it. Now, that I'm approaching the next half century of being me, and mobility is getting to be more difficult, I think about it almost constantly.
The only time in my life that I was in a wheelchair was when I was 27 (1995) and was recovering from injuries I got in a head-on collision with a drunk driver who was also high. My face and both legs were broken. I was removed from the wreckage and flown to the hospital in a Lifeflight helicopter. I was in ICU for a couple of days before being stable enough for surgery.
The first surgery was on my left hip. That's the side affected by Cerebral Palsy the most. The ball of that hip was split almost completely in half and it was dislocated. I've got 4 pins in it. A few days later, the next round of surgeries commenced. My face needed a lot of work because my forehead was broken almost into my sinuses. My nose was broken and my right eye socket was shattered. 8 hours of surgery and I look pretty good, I think. While one team was working on my face two other teams were working on saving my right leg. The patella was shattered and I had a compound fracture in the tib/fib. It tooka team of orthopedists and plastic surgeons to solve that puzzle.
I was in the hospital for a total of 16 days. 3 months in a wheelchair and 9 months of physical therapy got me back on my feet. I was still in pain most of the time, but I had gotten used to it.
5 years and many trips and falls later, I had to have another surgery on my right knee. The wires broke. It didn't require post-op physical therapy, so I didn't do it. I didn't do anything remotely related to exercise or physical therapy until 2015, when a fan girl crush on Sam Heughan inspired me to join MPC.
