Part 3... Chapter 3... Self reflection has started...

My body doesn’t like its new meccano spine and since the back-snap calamity my spinal cord injury has risen from T10-L1 to T4-L1. Leaving me now paralysed from the chest or to be more precise, from the bloody nipple line, down to my toes.

Spinal cord injury at T4 results in severe damage of the nervous tissue, with impairment of motor, sensory and autonomic functions.
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T4 syndrome is a relatively UNCOMMON condition in which spinal injury at the T4 vertebra causes a set of symptoms of the torso, legs and including diffuse arm pain with pins and needles or numbness in the upper arm.

Five months after the second back operation all I’ve want to do is dismember my body from nipple level to end all the pain my body is making me wheel around or lay with. Obviously, I couldn’t do that without killing myself, but still, it was a thought.

I eventually I got an appointment with the pain doc and after a long discussion we have decided to put me on pain relief medication called Gabapentin. It’s an antiepileptic drug introduced in 1993, but is also used for the treatment of severe nerve pain. It’s hoped that it will help control the neuro-pain and treat my partial seizures.
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The down side; dizziness, vision difficulties, possible kidney stones, weight gain, etc, etc. The list goes on.

To me, losing the use of my limbs was the first big physical and mental challenge of my life. Only to be followed with my first introduction of full on neuropathic pain. Counted on a scale of 1 – 3 or 1 -10, how about earth to the fuking moon and back.

Since my second back surgery my pain has bounced off the moon and is heading way past all the planets in our galaxy.

It’s hard you know, living with pain. It’s an enigma. The Pandora’s box of layer upon layer of challenges. A riddle almost in itself. Why is it there and how does it moves around the body? Yet it has never been proven what scale or level pain takes us. We just say when, what and how we feel with it. It’s never going to go. Just like thinking, it never leaves us.

When I go deep into my own personal thoughts of who I am now, I also start to think of how other people are thinking of me now that I’m in a wheelchair.

Over the time that I’ve been home, a lot of my friends are treating and talking to me differently. Are they seeing me first or the chair?
I cry. I cry so hard; the tears roll down my face like little beads of mercury.
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It’s days like this that I feel so android’ish with the digital chip for my mobility taken out.
I’m lying flat on my back looking at the fan shaped aertex decorated on my living room ceiling, that’s so 80s. It’s reminding me of growing up. Aertex was the thing to have in the 70s & 80s. What a disaster lol.

But lying here I’m missing the active part of my life and all the things I would do, could do, try to do, get others to do…. There is too much to miss.

Apart from missing the instant capability and capacity to get up and go, what I miss the most is the feeling of just being able to do anything without a second thought.

The feeling of body awareness.

The feeling of feeling Sexy. Attractive. Confident. Unneedy, and in Control. Intelligent.
I miss the ground beneath my feet. I miss the force of the wind pushing my legs for a faster walk.

I miss the first pee that has you bouncing up and down outside your front door after a good night out on the piss. Once inside it’s a fast sprint to the bathroom, followed by that sound of total relief. The ever faithful ‘Aarrrgghhh’ but the pee just keeps going on and on, and on lol.
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I miss the morning call of letting it all go sitting on the toilet, and wiping my own arse. And freedom to tickle the bum with a fart that always brings a giggle.

I miss everything. So, to perk myself up I’ve invited some of the girls over for a drink… Let’s see how it goes…
The night has arrived. Old time friends. A mixture of personalities, that I don’t think have met before. I don’t have a best friend, like a shadow following my every step and getting on my nerves thinking my business is their bloody business.
I have an array of friends all over the place. Social butterfly me, flitting from here and to there free spirited. Chatting to her, to him, to them. I am never short coming in conversation, and have always attracted a crowd. I thrive on meeting new people which is probably why I love working in the pub industry.
The girls should be arriving at around 8pm ish tonight. So, it’s time to put pen and paper away and get the slap on. One must look ones best, I don’t want to be upstaged by my chair lol.
Laterzzzz ????…