Choosing Rehab...

The other day I received this letter from Adam, which he has given me permission to share with you. Since then I have contacted the Brain Injury Society where he lives and found him the names of 3 rehabilitation hospitals that can help him and a hyperbaric oxygen center close to where he lives. I've also blended and reprinted the information that I gathered, while doing this search, to help guide him in his choice - CLICK HERE. I'll keep you posted on new developments and hopefully bring you some photos too.

I hope that his story will help spur you on to find some rehab if you're considering it. These are some steps to help you get started:

1. contact your local Association or Society (cancer, brain injury etc) - you can often find them by Googling them
2. email them and ask for a list of facilities in your area that could help you
3. follow my RBY guide.

I know that when I took these steps, nearly 25 years ago now, I was in pretty bad shape, like Adam. When you're in that place you feel desperate and alone. But with hard work - which I was willing to do and I can see Adam is willing to do too - miracles happen. I pray that when Adam gets out of rehab we can meet up and dance together! Good luck Adam... If you want to wish him luck too, please add your wishes with the 'comment' button. Or EMAIL ME and I will pass on your wishes to him. Thank you!

Hello, My name is Adam Rogers. And I am going to tell you a strange, but very true story. And ask you for some help.

Five years back, Sept. 23, 2003 to be exact, I was in a near fatal motorcycle accident. And I was not speeding or wasted. I do not remember it, or any of the two years prior. So here it sis, in a nutshell.

I was traveling home on my motorcycle to my wife and two children, on highway 1, just outside of Carmel, CA, when I ran into 6, I am told, dead Wild Boar, lying on the highway. Anyway, I was thrown from the motorcycle and sailed through the air. Luckily for me my 30+ years of martial arts training paid off. As I tucked and rolled. The move definitely saved my life. But, as I was thrown ahead of the motorcycle, it caught up to me and hit my head. So I suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury.

I was in a coma for 30 days. And in, what I am told is a semi-coma for five months after. I am at home now, but am disabled. I cannot walk. And not because of loss of limbs. As I am very strong and can stand easily. It is a balance issue. As I have none. My doctor says that the nerves in my ‘core’ are damagd.

It is just very difficult. As I am very strong. As at the time of the accident I was a US amatuer middleweight kickboxing champion.

So now I am now begging you for some help. I want to walk. Don’t get me wrong. I am thankful to be alive. Just, not like this. I can’t even wheel myself in my wheel chair. As when I hit, like I said I tucked and rolled. And I landed on my left shoulder. Breaking my left clavicle. I am at the end of my rope. So I am looking for some live in rehab.

I will tell you my thoughts. As I sit here in my wheel chair I cannot sit forward. I try, but cannot. I am sure this is the problem. I canot even use cane. As I am so physically strong that I throw it. And as I said, I broke my left clavicle, so cannot use my left hand or arm. Can you, will you help me? Adam...

Hula-Hooping!

I've been slow and infrequent at posting new blogposts - several reasons but no real excuse... I can never get the photos loaded properly? So many things happen every day and it's quicker and easier to Twitter! Which I do too since our last blog - and we've gained over 400 followers since then! Yay! On Sunday I had 3 guests sitting drinking coffee and eating omelettes on my deck - sheer heaven. Martin Guay of Total Biology was here with my good friends Marilyn and Rose. Rose brought her hoop! Rose has used the hoop to recover her health after a long and very nasty bout with cancer - and can do tricks as you can see! And Marilyn amazed everyone - including herself! - by keeping the hoop going for ages - despite severe myelopathy. Her core strength was fabulous - we think because of pilates. Hooping is great for fitness and it improves co-ordination and general stamina and health. Exercise is one of the most important things when you ReBuild - along with everything else! The difference in the quality of life and the speed of healing is huge - I notice immediately if I slack off! Pilates, ball classes, dancing (salsa, bachata and ballroom this week!), HOOPING, hiking up a mountain (small one!) and walking on the beach are just some of what we've been doing between us. Ooooo! I want to add that I've been doing my 'other' exercises too?! Check out this great video of Jack Lalanne, now over 94 and healthy... It makes me cry with laughter, I just love it! Now if I stop here and keep my blogs short they'll be easier to read and easier to post too! With love, Julie

Progress?

Five 5 days ago - I was lying here on my bed - where I am right now - wondering how the heck I could turn what I'm spending hours doing into a supporting, full-time (or part-time) real employment? So my baby son - who's 19 years old now! - handed me a tissue and told me to start twittering. Shut up and start twittering. Now! I had no idea what he meant. But I trusted him. So I tried. Slowly - and not so slowly - the wheels began to turn and I started to get more visitors... It's working.

And any bits of advice from anyone reading this - as to how I could start to change this 'good idea, Julie' into 'Yes! This idea rocks!" - please email and share them. I'd love to hear from you.

I have a sneaking feeling that rebuilding people is very much like rebuilding your business... Including a business online? And rebuilding and building are pretty much the same? Here's a picture of my friend Dom helping me twitter!

If that's true, then sharing what we know and supporting each other is what this is all about... In all kinds of ways.

So I guess the next move is to do more of the same. Daily. And to see if I can get photos of everyone who helps me, laying on my bed?! Yay!!

Take Step After Step, Even In The Dark...

I want to tell you about something that I'm thinking - and wondering if you agree or not?! It doesn't seem to be about how bad we are (in terms of hurt after some kind of trauma). It seems to be more about if we want to put in enough of the right sort of effort to make a change. Do we want to walk. Want to get better. A friend of mine who had cancer hated those words - and they may be BS... I don't know.

It's not easy. Sometimes we all have real, real, real horrible days. I had those days and still do sometimes. But overall, we just have to keep going. And if we do, even though we often can't see the daily progress, it is there. Progress happens. We have to keep taking step after step, even in the dark... In the early stages Pilates is the best form of exercise I found - and I tried everything. Pilates and walking - on flat ground and then on uneven ground, such as the grass in the park or the beach. A pilates class is the best but there is a DVD here which is very useful to practice with - just click on the photo or HERE.

I was quite excited to notice something last night... I went to a salsa dance club. Five years ago, the dancing seemed too fast for me to do. Way too fast. I took lessons - tons of lessons - and then slowly, after about a year, the dancing seemed to slow down and I could do it. Magical! I had a great couple of years. There's a good DVD of salsa lessons here - click on the photo above or HERE...

Then I had this other accident almost 3 years ago - just a minor car accident and whiplash. I didn't go dancing at all for over a year and when I did, it was just incredibly fast again and there was no way I could do it. I was so upset. I went several times (just in case I'd been wrong?!) and every time it was way too fast. I still took lessons, although all of the progress I'd made before had just disappeared and I had to start from scratch. First I was too dizzy to spin at all. Then, slowly I could spin just once now and again...

Last night, finally, I noticed the dancing seemed to be a tiny bit slower again! Gingerly I tried, with a partner I knew from lessons - thank you Joe. I found I could manage a little. At last! It had been 3 whole years and a ton of lessons since I was able to dance. I was over the moon!

Stamina is something else and is still a problem for me - I used to be able to work full time and do 3 lessons a week plus go out dancing - and more. For a long while - over a year - I was able to do nothing other than rehab in the hospital. Slowly I added walks on the beach and kept up my vitamin schedule. Now I'm working just part-time and can only manage one lesson a week and the odd evening out. But that's better then a year ago and I think it still getting better - I just can't always see it. I have to take my own advice and be patient and keep trying too!

I guess what I'm saying is this: if you keep trying then slowly - very slowly - things will come into focus again. They will slow down, as it were. It's not easy to keep going when you think you see impossibility around you. But somehow you have to keep going. Eventually the impossible may become possible.

Have a lovely sunny day, with a hug, Julie

A Double - no, Triple - Celebration!

HAPPY BLOGGERS DAY!


Happy Canada Day (July 1st) and Independence Day (July 4th) - and may I also declare this (Jul 7th) Bloggers Day...

My hat is off to all the bloggers out there. It's tough to find the time to actually go and be part of celebrations, photograph them, download your pictures, photoshop them, write a blog and upload your finished photos.

When I started my blog, I only allowed 5 - 10 minutes every day to do it! Ha! It takes over an hour sometimes - so I now have a new appreciation of all the blogs I read.

I had another realization the other day too: one of my favourite bloggers didn't blog and I felt a loss? I was a bit surprised because I had always wondered what the real value was (to be honest) and did I really want to know what was going on for everybody? But. Turns out I do! It's become a very integral part of me. I have several blogs and update emails (as I call them) delivered to my inbox every day. And although on busy days I only read the subject line, on others I open and read bits and pieces that are relevant to me to grab my attention. It's become an important part of my everyday life and my personal ReBuilding.

And I miss you - them (my blogs!) - when they're not there.

So Happy Blogging Day!

And sincere thanks to the policeman who allowed us to park so we could see the fireworks from the car - disability is much easier to bear when officials use a sense of fairness together with the rules... And rooves of cars are so much more friendly than wheelchairs!

Last Day On The Road...

Today we drove through extremes of scenery - from arid desert-like hills with salt bushes and great chasms - to the alpine, twisting roads of the Fraser Canyon. We passed gold mining rivers and dusty towns that had come and gone with the gold rush. We passed tourist attractions and run down roadside stops - including one totally over-the-top Elvis themed cafe run by a very unhappy man... Somehow we missed Hope, where we intended to stop for a while and drove on to Chilliwack. Neither of us were ready to end our holiday and enter the so-called civilized world... We stopped and Marilyn soothed her angst with a fabulous camera. I bought a part for my GPS and a teeshirt. Eventually we could delay it no longer and drove the last few miles. Our week had been great and after we polished up the motorhome and left it in my friend's field, we bought some of the delicious Blackberry Wine - the one that goes so well with white chocolate fudge - to tide us over until the next trip.