went to the ignis devoco show last night. worked the door so that i could get in free, though i wouldn't have minded paying if i had had more than $2 on me. most of it just involved sitting around and listening to my roommate make a hilarious mockery of everything people said. the atmosphere of these parties is so relaxed and nonjudgemental, as compared to the usual bar or club scene, that i actually talked to a bunch of random people. plus, i got to sit and chat with lane for awhile, which was nice.
bbq today! except i can't seem to get ahold of anybody who isn't working. looks like it might end up being just me and cellophane. heh.
bbq today! except i can't seem to get ahold of anybody who isn't working. looks like it might end up being just me and cellophane. heh.
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There was one funny moment that came out of wearing that thing though. I was living a couple blocks away from Valencia Gardens (ghetto housing project in SF) at the time. One day while waiting at a bus stop two hommies pulled up in a beat up hatch back and said something to me. I couldn't hear what he said at first so I said, "huh?". The passenger leaned out the window and said, "The vest man, how much for the vest? Can you hook me up?"
I had no idea what he was talking about so I said, "What vest? What are you talking about?"
"The bullet proof vest man. Like the one you've got on. Sell me one man."
Then it dawned on me. He saw that outline of my back brace and thought it was a bullet proof vest. I started laughing while they just stared at me. It took me a several seconds to stop laughing enough to tell them it was a back brace and that they definitely didn't want one. The looked a little embarresed when they took off.
I was in two different hospitals for a total of about a month. My rods are about fifteen inches long (from T2 to T9). I broke T4, T5, and T6 so they removed the discs between those vertebrae and used bone chips from my pelvis to help the bone fill in the gaps. The only purpose of my rods was to keep my spine straight while my broken vertebrae healed. In fact, now that the bone is healed my rods serve only to make me uncomfortable when I sit against a hard backed chair. Unfortunately, it's too dangerous to take them out.
I talked to several doctors about the level of activity that I should be able to do safely with the rods in my back. There were one or two that told my to knock off my dangerous behaviour but most of them said I should have no greater risk of spinal injury than I did before. One guy even told me it would take a larger impact to break my back now that it did before (metal reinforced and all). I think the reason I'm not at greater risk is that my rods are confined to my thorasic spine (the part that the ribs are attached to). There's not a whole lot of flexibility in that part of the spine anyway so I didn't lose a lot of flexibility. Anyway, that's what I tell myself.
How long are your rods (damn, yours are bigger than mine)? It sounds like they had to have a go at your spine from the front as well as the back. Yucky. They just went in from the back on me. I'm often annoyed by my rods. I can't even imagine how much it would suck to have them the whole length of my back. I suppose you do have good posture though, eh? Mine actually allow me to slump.
As for thinking about it... I think about it all the damn time. I guess it's been longer for you (7 years?). The other thing is that I was paralyzed from the chest down for almost a month. During the first couple of weeks it was unclear whether or not I'd walk again and to say the breaking your back hurts is a major understatement. I've done a lot of painful things in my time but nothing has ever come even remotely close to that. For instance, a colapsed lung and ruptured spleen are like stubbing your toe in comparison. So, I'm less obsessed with thinking about this crap than I was a year or two ago but it does still occupy my brain with a decent frequency.