Dec 31st
Leukocyte esterase. This is fun to have to learn all this new terms of signs that your body has an infection…. So many new problems I have to deal with in my everyday life, it gets really overwhelming trying to manage it all plus all the things I dealt with before this.
What’s wild is how the thoughts and words we chose can dictate our lives. Like, the music we listen to, the activities we participate in, the movies and tv shows, are all part of the conscious experience we are all participating in. It’s wild, because it makes me really think about this situation too. And how it all relates.
Being able to take time to get all of the thoughts, ideas, emotions, and experience out on the table helps me differentiate between what’s real and what’s not real, what I don’t want, and what I do. The things I can change, and the things I can’t.
By being able to critically think about every thought that is going thru my mind, allows me the chance to really understand it all, and why it’s there, and if it should be at all. What is wild is how we don’t hardly give ourselves these opportunities to differentiate between what thoughts are real, errant, and what’s unnecessary.
Wouldn’t it be nice if our head was only filled with good thoughts? With thoughts that were productive? Wouldn’t that be great?
As soon as I’m saying this, I know and very much realize that it wouldn’t, because you would never understand what good from bad is. We would never give ourselves the chance to learn what we want vs what is just there.
To spend time thinking is never a waste. Our lives are so busy and fast paced we never truly give ourselves the time to think.
What’s crazy is trying to keep up with everyone around me. It’s really hard to manage every single one of the relationships, it just doesn’t work that way. It’s hard.
Wow, so it’s New Year’s Eve, and I wasn’t feeling it till now?? My body is feeling awful, like that black cauldron, and I realized and thought and KNEW that big changes are coming!
Whenever I got a UTI last time, something significant happened. And this is also going to be a time like that.
When my body feels absolutely horrible, I know big changes are coming.
Right, shits wild as hell right now. What’s really interesting is I’ve noticed that when I’m feeling especially shitty, and wild in my abdomen and legs, I’ve been able to try to move thru these experiences, and feel and grow from it all.
Like, I feel things differently after it, like my body has been working in overtime, and it’s trying its fucking best to get things back. Like sensation, movement, or bodily functions.
So if it takes fighting an infection to get things back, I’ll struggle thru it.
January 1st 2024
Wow, I’m still here. I’m alive, and I’m finally feeling a bit better! It’s wild, I was really feeling some temperature in the bottoms of my feet! It’s really interesting feeling the change in sensations as time moves on.
What’s really nice is the antibiotics are kicking in and I’m finally on the mend from the fucking UTI. I hate that shit, it’s so dang annoying!
Jan 2nd
Well, yeah the doctors called this morning to confirm that I do have a UTI. That’s lame.
I actually got myself into a meditative state, which was cool!
My abdomen doesn’t feel like it’s on fire! Which is also cool! It definitely feels like I have to go, and at the moment, I’m really focusing in on trying to go!
My legs are feeling so much this morning! And my feet are really feeling some spots of temperature as well!!
What’s crazy is how quickly your mindset shifts when you’re not feeling well. I literally melted.
I definitely was able to control my breathing really well in the cold shower today! I engaged my parasympathetic nervous system and actually let a toot go!!
Things to talk to therapist about:
⁃ Meditating, seeing me walking, and playing thru my morning run
⁃ External validation
⁃ not going to accept the fate of the wheelchair, I will be running and biking and walking again
⁃ My notes, and how it’s affected how I think
⁃ Getting let go from job
⁃ My long term goals and plans
⁃ longest training plan ever for a marathon
⁃ Inability to function in the nether regions
⁃ How to not get so easily distracted/ how to help organize my time and thoughts/ how to dedicate more time for thoughts and thinking activities
⁃ I’m not taking any pain medication/ got rid of all the nerve blocking pills
⁃ Everything has been taken away from my old life, and that’s hard
June 15th
⁃ “There’s a lot of things that have changed from my old life, you are an outlier”
⁃ Maybe get him a shock collar, conditioned learning response
⁃ Have a bit of reassurance too, he was there for me the whole time post relationship
⁃ If you are really worried about the car and the dog, you would be surprised
⁃ Maybe shock collar for cat?
⁃ You could have a really copacetic living environment
⁃ Dogs are a member of a family
⁃ If you have that with Max, don’t let that go.
⁃ Andrew Huberman
⁃ Visualization of both the muscle contractions and visualization of having and feeling an erection as as much as I can
⁃ Biofeedback with the muscle stimulation?
Jan 15th therapist
So like, keep doing it!!
I’m definitely feeling a change in the pins and needles in my feet. They really seem to be the only place anymore where I do feel that. It’s changing as the temperature, and the moisture on my body changes. It’s really interesting that having the UTI’s and when I get sick affects my body like this. I feel like because my body is going thru such immense changes, that it cannot address the common problems that I encounter, like the potential bacteria from when I pee
So, to have to go thru these situations to finally feel something new, because that’s what my body was preparing for, is not a bad alternative.
Thinking about the moments on the hospital, looking out at the spring trees, and watching them fill out, the neighbors houses that were there, and waiting for my mother to come, is an interestingly distant place now. When you take a few days away from a particular feeling, your body and mind really puts them behind you. which makes me think about walking, and how I will not forget those runs with max, and what that feels like, what I see, the sensations under my feet, and in my legs. It’s something I cannot lose sight of!!
So when I’m not in an awful pain, it’s easy for those images to become more distant and obscured.
Also, fun fact of the day:
You can’t go talk to your therapist about all the things that have changed and you can’t do, because they moved to the third floor with no elevator…. that’s been a fun one to try to navigate. I don’t know how or why that’s a thing, but apparently that is…
The feeling of having to pee is definitely getting stronger. Today I’ve peed 3x and I’ve gone every 2hrs?! So that’s wild. It’s really something, what the stim unit does….. it’s really making and waking things up down there!
Just thinking about thinking gets to be a really interesting time. More things are related than we all care to know.
Lots of sore butt feelings!
Jan 3rd
Good call on laying on your tum this morning, it gets tight on your anterior side!
Wow, stimulating my parasympathetic nervous system really is working! I just had some of the longest toots I’ve ever had!!! This was crazy, all the pressure in my abdomen is subsided!
Also, the feeling in my legs has been really amazing today. Especially in my lower legs, and ankles! I was really feeling how cold they were today when I was eating breakfast!
So, this is why this watch is a really cool thing to have, and to use to help me track what’s going on in my body. By understanding that I need to work my parasympathetic nervous system, so I avoid bottoming out and don’t get too tired throughout the day is really important. By making time to consciously breathe, and slow down, I’m helping myself out. Just one day at a time.
To think about how your right side ribs had hurt so significantly bad for so long, to now they feel fine, is absolutely maddening. Like, to think how quickly our brain is able to take something that was such a significant portion of our day, of our thoughts, our attention, and go to basically nothing.
When this happens, it’s most interesting to understand that our brains are constantly in a state of survival
Dec 4th
The idea of vicarious nostalgia
Acquiescence
Epigrammatic
Apothegm
So, the immense amount of tightness I feel in my legs from my leg muscles actually being working has been amazing. I truly am feeling them grow, work, and being there for me.
With everyday I am trying to also be better about what words I choose to use to try and describe my progress. This is because I know how important the words we choose in our day-to-day is. When we choose the right words, it helps shape our thoughts, and our mind is the most powerful muscle of them all.
Because we are able to think critically about the observations our bodies are experiencing, we can help ourselves out little by little by reframing the thought process. One day at a time my legs are growing. One day at a time I can feel how my thoughts are being reshaped. It’s interesting to understand this process of our body and our mind, and how interlinked ourselves are. im not describing some type of magic, but a truly deep understanding of ourselves.
by knowing the muscles that are waking up, and helping give each one attention, im really helping trying to care for myself.
Jan 5th
Holy guacamole! So like, with any immediate gains, the realization that it’s a neurological change, not me physically growing my muscles, is literally what’s happening! When I’m doing these balance exercises, and I FEEL different muscles in my legs trying to engage, feel tight, or anything, is legitimately a neurological change, of me DOING IT!
It’s not that my muscles are getting ripped in the matter of minutes, but my brain and body is making a new connection! When I get thrown back into the backrest of my wheelchair because my legs are “spasming” is really my legs reacting to me trying to hold myself up! My quads have to be engaged when I’m holding myself upright, so they are really squeezing and contracting when I’m holding my torso up!
So when I’m wiggling around, constantly trying to regain my balance when I’m actually just doing a bunch of mini-falls, is me reconnecting and making new mental connections with my brain! I’m getting it! I’m doing it! it’s a lot of repetition! You can’t walk and keep yourself upright if your torso, your back, and shoulders and arms aren’t strong! So what’s really cool is doing these things in the chair, holding myself up, wiggling around, and feeling it out!
My legs feel really good right now that I’m doing it! More and more, just little by little!
Whats crazy too, is that I’ve had a thought in the back of my head that if I do “too much” that I will get tired. But the mental fatigue and physical fatigue are different, so I’m gonna be playing around with this!
No more am I going to be sitting idle and laying back in this backrest. Never again. I can’t do that unless I’m resting! 😴 I always gotta be getting myself in a position to try to catch myself when I’m falling, to help make stronger connections! It’s just like slacklining!
The comment Bob made yesterday about in weightlifting, that you make so many gains in the early days of training because you are making and forming a stronger mental connection really clicked with me! What’s really interesting is applying that today.
I really do think there is alot to be said to getting to talk to so many people, and ask so many people for their thoughts and ideas. I gotta continue to explore that!
Eyes closed balance. I’m working on this! It’s wild my heart rate definitely takes notice of this!
January 6th
So today is the hunt. Making me cry knowing there are so many folks out there doing something I love, and supporting me in this wild freaking time.
You know, it’s times like this that you really do appreciate all the people that are in your life, the different folks we come across, and everyone in between. It sure does say a lot about the folks that I’ve met, and have the pleasure to have in my life.
When you lose so much, you really get to learn what’s really important. Family, friends, a good head on your shoulders, working arms and hands. Everything else is extra.
I’m working hard everyday to do my exercises and electrical stimulation to get my functions back, I gotta work everyday, something new is moving or I’m feeling in my legs and abdomen!
Please take a minute and give my family, and my mother the biggest dang hug for me, they have been the most supportive, caring, and amazing people any one would have the chance to meet.
I’m a pretty grateful guy these days, that’s been something I cannot, and will not forget.
If anyone knows someone with more metal in them than me or Wolverine, let me know, I want to meet em!
The Astronaut on Earth 
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