One Year

Last week marked one year since I started with my current company. Wow. The company has improved greatly since we were acquired earlier this year, and they're even flying the entire Vancouver and Whistler offices down to our California head office in January for a Christmas party (people have too many commitments in December to spend the weekend out of town).

There will be an auction at the party for things like LCD TVs, iPods, gift cards, trips, etc. We bid with auction bucks that we earn from October to December for good performance and winning various team building contests. Yesterday was a pumpkin carving contest. Unfortunately, I had to go for physio so I couldn't participate, but I've attached a video that one of my coworkers produced. Blogger won't let me embed a video in my post, so here is a direct link (there are a lot of Jackass fans in the office).

A new Rispin enters the family

Congratulations to Geoff and Cindi for their wedding yesterday. It was very well planned and turned out very well. The weather also could not have been better.

There was a moment during the wedding when Geoff was up at the front and the music starting playing for Cindi to enter, but there was a delay before she came in the room. We could see a nervous look on Geoff's face as he waited for her to enter the room and walk down the aisle.

These are some photos from yesterday. I will post more in my photo gallery when I get the chance to fix them up. The two children dancing are Cindi's nieces.

Gated communities

The fitness centre in my apartment is open until 11pm each night. It is located on the fourth floor, and requires going through an access-controlled elevator and a few access-controlled doors to get to the gym and then back to my apartment. Normally, elevator access to the floor and all door access on the floor are cut off at 11pm, but for some reason some time last week, access is now disabled 15 minutes earlier. That means the only way back to my tower is a trip down the elevator in the south tower to its lobby and going down the street outside to get back to my north tower if I miss the cutoff.

It reminds me of a conversation I had earlier this year before I went into the hospital. I was at a comedy club discussing politics with someone who was sitting at the table next to me. He was very articulate and had some interesting ideas. For some reason, we started talking about safety and my apartment complex. I was telling him about everything being access card controlled and that we had a 24 hour security guard/concierge. He referred to my building as being a vertical gated community. I had never thought of it that way before that.

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I've been exercising nearly every day now, either in my gym at home or at GF Strong in the physio gym or the pool. The progress is slow, but I am seeing improvements. I can almost leg press my body weight. I'm hoping I can hit that threshold by the end of the month. One of the challenges I wasn't yet able to do in my last blog entry was stand up off my couch. It sinks down when one sits in it, and I had to do a pivot transfer onto the wheelchair and stand up from there. It takes some effort, but I can now stand up from the couch.

I can actually feel the muscles in my arms. That feels very good, considering I could wrap my hand around my skinny upper arm back when I was in the hospital four months ago. Friends have been commenting on how scary skinny I was back then. My endurance is better too. I've been doing hyperbaric oxygen treatments each week at Yaletown Holistics, and the two-block trip back home is a slight incline. A month ago, I had to stop halfway to rest before continuing, and now I can push myself for the entire trip without having to stop.

My resting heart rate is down to the mid-eighties. That is still high for someone my age, but it is a huge improvement from the 110+ when I was lying in bed in the hospital. Hopefully that will continue to improve as I get healthier. The risk is that at some point I may plateau and not improve from there. I'm hearing differing opinions. My rehab doctor thinks I'll peak at 70-80% of normal, but he has also never seen a case like mine before. The last EMG test showed a slight improvement in my nerves.

My goal is to get better than I was before. Right now, I'm in the pool twice a week, in the physio gym twice a week, and in my gym at home four times a week. That's about eight hours of exercise each week. I'm up to 25 minutes on the exercise bike at home, and I can pedal faster than when I first started using it at home three weeks ago.

My physiotherapist is impressed that I'm doing a lot of exercising at home. I just view it as something I need to do, but a lot of people just accept being in a wheelchair, even when they have the potential to get better. The downside is that I'm neglecting a lot of friends, since my weeknights are spent at home in the gym, instead of out and about.

Work is awesome about letting me take the time I need to get better. The VP of our group understands my situation. She suffered an injury skiing when she was younger, and had to spend a year doing rehab to walk again. I'm working from home one to two days a week, and my aggregate hours add up to about 3.5 to four actual days of work.

I'm driving now too. I'm in better shape now than when I stopped driving back in May. It feels good having the freedom to get into my car and go out whenever I want to, instead of relying on public transit or asking for friends to go out of their way.

I'll never know what caused all this to happen, but I wonder if stress played a role. An MD would probably discount this theory and say that there is a scientific reason, but a naturopath takes a different approach to these things and would consider it. There were a number of factors contributing to a lot of stress for me late last year, within a few months of the first symptom. Regardless, I'm staying much more laid back now.