7/5/26 – Reflections & Travel Back to USA
What’s wild and interesting is all the steps I have to go thru for flying on a plane. I definitely am fortunate i am able to do so, because this could be a whole lot worse, and not be able to go at all!
Talking to Callie on this trip, and it’s been interesting thinking about something. If you get a second chance at life, no one said it was going to be just as easy as it was before said accident. lol. Truthfully it’s pretty wild and amazing that we live in a world where we can even get people to this point, really! It’s just wild, because these days it’s just kinda hard, no easier way to put it. And truth be told there are alot of folks who have it way harder than me! I always have to remind myself.
Callie and I have been talking about the fact that, Even if we do hard things, doesn’t mean we cant have a good time! The fact that we are still doing all of this, is honestly a pretty remarkable place and position to be in, honestly! It’s hard to always for get this fact.
The Albanian fella we met last night is right. It’s not always what the media makes them out to be. Relationships really are a lot of work! They’re not a walk in the park. It’s easy to see people on television being in a relationship in a movie or show. But what those 1-2hrs doesn’t show is the travel from the train station to the hotel, or how the suitcase broke and now you have to manage 3 suitcases and 1 with a broken set of wheels!! It doesn’t talk about how your body tenses up because you haven’t gone to the bathroom in a bit, and although you think you can hold it, and you’re gonna be able to make it, your body is going to be left with a terrible feeling that is hard to shake for the rest of the day. It doesn’t mention that every single type of airfare or train ticket, you better be sure to call the airline or train station, for up to an hour, to clear up the gate check and wheelchair situation. Oh yeah? The name change Callie did? Don’t forget to call up both airlines for that!
Yeah I guess what I’m saying is, the hard times are still there. You can’t really change that. Something always seems to come up! And I feel like that is only part of the list! We are getting better and learning from our mistakes, like only booking accessible rooms, but even then, the hotels can mess them up! This last one in Norway even put us in an ‘accessible room’ according to their system, but that was obviously wrong after we walked in and I could barely fit in the bathroom! They certainly cleared it up as soon as we went down, but still! Just the fact of the matter is if something can go wrong, it almost certainly does. lol. Yep, Murphy’s Law. In real time.
We’re trying, doing, and honestly at the end of the trip, I’m honestly feeling WAY better than when we left, even! It’s been hard, but Callie and I have been workin better together than ever. We still get mad at each other sometimes, but we’re laughing soon after! The barrage of never ending challenges can really be tough, but I do think they’re always harder, without being able to smile, at least, a little bit. Or have a laugh, or something to break the mood or silence! Just being able to live a little is always a remarkable thing.
So, when I get back, I’m gonna hit it hard back on my body, because he is feeling and activating more than ever!! It’s been interesting feeling the changes from all the passive inputs from the train and airplanes!
Also, it’s extremely helpful when the airport security lines help us through to the front of the lines, because the whole process takes a while. If they do help us with that, it’s a big time saver, but if not, it can take an even longer time than you’d expect. That’s what happened in Chicago! What a way to kick off the trip!
7/6/26 – Pains of Being Back
Creak. Pop. All the unsettling sounds of my back as I attempt to get up standing in the standing frame for the first time since we left on the trip. I’m not exactly thrilled with how difficult this is right now. I hate how tight my body is. I hate how much work my body is. Sometimes I really just effing hate it. This body is so much work. I’ve been at this now for like 2 hrs, slowly up, to the point I don’t think I can go any farther, my feet or hamstrings spasm, feet fall out of place, and I’m back down again. Ugh. Repeat this for 10-20x. Oh yeah after all this you still won’t be up standing. You’re taking a break from it all because you’re just pissed. Great. Love it.
It’s awesome not even being able to get up to stand in the standing frame even. I hate this. The amount of “mind-f-kery” this is, is absolutely relentless. I hate it.
I don’t even know what I want out of life sometimes. All the work I do with my brain feels fruitless without my body helping and participating like he ought to. Ugh.
I’ve seriously been struggling with the fact / question about having a second chance at life, and how it’s so much harder now because of all of this. It’s weird to have a brain that is able to think about all of this. It’s weird to live in a society where we can help people get back to some level of life, as opposed to none at all. It’s weird to have to think about it all. I know I don’t have to, but boy let me tell ya it would be so much more difficult if I never thought like this at all.
(Sigh).
I got PT today. For the first time since the trip. That will hopefully help these spirits. It’s a shame to know how important movement is, but not always have the help needed to move the way you can. It’s also just hard having to get so much help. It breaks my heart.
Good session of PT! Definitely felt good to get back at it! Phew!
7/7/26 – Nighttime Thoughts
The pull and the tug of my muscles. Feeling discomfort, feeling anything. Honestly the words to describe the sensations I now have are really interesting to compare back to earlier days! I didn’t always feel so much!
Trying to get my body to do so much is always a fine line and a hard balance to get just right. Fitting all of the activities in a singular day is also hard. I sure as heck don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I gotta keep moving! I do!
You ever cry, looking at all the “stuff” you need to be able to go #1? Well, I just did. Turns out it’s hard, having to witness all the things, I have to do all day. It’s hard. Being what feels like a prisoner in your own body is hard. It’s weird. I hate it. I don’t know how to make sense of it all sometimes.
I don’t even want to write the words I have to think, sometimes. It’s awful.
To think that our bodies are really more like animals or programmed robots is honestly so saddening to me sometimes. I see it, in my day to day, and how it doesn’t do what it’s programmed to do.
I had this thought earlier, while sitting in a meeting in a conference room, overlooking the parking lot. I was thinking about our bodies, and the second part of the thought is just escaping me? It was a weird and novel idea, and when I rode the elevator earlier today, I wanted to try to remember this thought?
It’s weird how writing keeps me in the present moment. Like, simultaneously I’m able to be sad, but also realize I’m sad, and write about? It’s 9:27pm, I want to go to sleep, and I’m stretching out my abdomen and hip flexors, giving them the much needed break from a long day.
I don’t want anything
Else at this moment
No toys, Knick knacks, THINGS
Only my body, ready
To tackle tomorrows jobs
And today’s tasks
Without a worry in the world
Working quietly – steadfast
Our legs, they hold us up
Without a thought of their own
Or do they?
Is there a part?
That we don’t control on our own?
Would our legs guide us
To a marketed and full city?
Or a forested path
Along a deep, vacuous lake?
Would they hold you up
Without a thought
Or anyone resting there?
Where would they take you?
Or sit you down to rest?
7/8/26 – Slow Progress
I had an awful night. My left hip flexor / complex is so tight that I cannot seem to even get some rest. I’m sweaty. Tight. Frustrated. This is rough. No wonder I’ve been having a harder and harder time to do literally anything, my body is just not in it to win it. Ugh.
I feel like I’m all twisted up in a pretzel. I can’t roll over on my own, and now I gotta figure out how to get up and out of bed. Wish me luck.
At PT today, Maddie says to me, “you know, from what I can tell from you here, and what you tell me about work, is you like to figure things out” and honestly, I like asking questions and truly getting to the bottom of a problem. I know it’s not always easy to do that, but I’m okay with that. Sometimes the coolest findings are unexpected on the way to find something else.
It’s been a day, trying to get these legs back kicking like they should. Progress is progress, but boy is it slow.
7/9/26 – Biological Plausibility
I had a dream we were all in the Czech and also at Houghton simultaneously? Trying to drink Czech beer from the streets, and find a spot to eat in a crowded Houghton? Weird?
Had to get up in the middle of the night to go bathroom, haven’t done that in a while. Shucks.
I remembered the thought! What if children as they are growing up and developing, start to learn to tolerate “pain”? As in so many new sensations to them are actually kinda painful in their eyes? And there’s a sliding scale as to what all kids can tolerate? Like for me, I was “Collicy” and would get upset or cry from the weirdest things? What if that’s what I am relearning in my process to gain back as much sensation and activation?
Biological Plausibility? I think that’s what was made mention of yesterday? How people can have ideas for things in our body with no research, but there’s enough evidence to support this idea? Is that what it was?
I’m wondering, if this is not simply a nervous system issue but an oxygenation issue? As in, I wonder if I can measure the amount of oxygen going to my muscles when I’m trying to fire them? Are these muscles actually getting enough oxygen to fire? How can I test this?? This reminds me of how when I do the hundred I can do better movement, but I don’t know if that’s all there is?
Hunger task force – Helped out with the team today!! Had a good time boxing up some dry goods for some folks who are in need!
Bike ride went well today too!
Callie and I got some patio pots to try to plant some tomato and pepper plants! Let’s see how it goes!
Tired – its been a day. I need some rest.
7/10/26 – Triple Threat
Man is my sacral region of my spine and pelvis lighting up with sensation and activation! My entire trunk and core I can feel activating, deep in my left hip is tight, and my quads and hamstrings also are feeling so much activation! Down into my gastroc’s and ankles, feet and toes! So much activation happening!
These bike rides are really doing a number on my body! Something about that triple threat, cardio, extension, rhythmic motion? It really, REALLY is helping?!
I know that there is so much more going on in our body and that’s the next link and step I want to take, continuing my quantum physics learning, expanding that area of knowledge, and linking it back to the bodies biology, and neuroscience. Making new and sustained connections in our body is absolutely fascinating, and I want to help understand this mechanism more? Why? What is it that I am doing (or a combination of what I am doing) helping my body recover so much?
It was interesting yesterday when I was on my way to the bike shop, to get my tube swapped. I notified how relaxed my legs were? Was it from all the activity from the Hunger Task Force event, boxing up canned goods for 2hrs, paired with the first standing frame session in what feels like forever? Was it my attitude as well? When I got on the Handcycle for the first time in over 2-3weeks, my legs almost got into full extension? And I wasn’t even sure why? Honestly, that mind-body connection is real, and I need to dig into this a bit more!
I need these joints to continue to get stronger. But also they need to continue to learn how to relax? The CBD balm morning and evening yesterday too, that really helped?!
I just want to understand, try to measure, and try to track these phenomena and changes? Some way to measure the signal intensity and strength, and give a graphical feedback of some form to people in recovery to give them some biofeedback on their progress?
I’m wondering what other quantum physics and neuroscience ideas I’ve been working with in my writing? I’ll have to read back to try to tie all this together because I think there might be something here?.. let’s see!?
7/11/26 – House Work Ramping Up!
Today was honestly a pretty solid day. Even though I didn’t get to work on my legs a ton, it was an overall pretty productive day. Lots of activities worked on around the house. Trying to get settled back in after being gone for so long! This trip really threw Cal and I out of whack, and we gotta get this house all squared away and settled in, before I can really deep dive back into my body and other projects!
Taking time to get the rest of my life all organized is really going to help give some structure and steadiness back into the day. It’s hard when you’re always chasing around where every last little thing you need is to start your day. That’s tough. So one day at a time just trying to chip away at it all!
Some fun observations today were how my legs responded to the hill today on the driveway. Cross-cutting and side-hilling the driveway I was pushing my upper foot into the ground more than the downhill foot, and it was weird how my body responded?! He’s really working to keep me up! I’ve been working on not using my one hand to hold me up while moving around and pushing around, and that’s also had some significant effects!
The standing frame at home, since it doesn’t have any foot holds, and just foot plates, lets my feet slip out when my legs are being difficult. So I only got up part way. But my body is still working so hard to get in extension! I gotta do some stim work on these quads, they really need it!
When I got down from the standing frame, my legs were bouncing / trying to move to the rhythm of the sounds of an old emo song from a band I listened to quite a bit back in the day! When The Sun Sleeps – by Underoath. It’s crazy because it seems to be some of the most peculiar and unassuming instances that my legs respond to? Passive input. Times I’m not “telling” him to do something? There’s a connection, I just don’t know how to access it? What other extended positions, besides laying, in the standing frame, in the braces, or in the Exo, can I get my legs into, to help them work on quads and extension? There’s gotta be something else to do? Are babies doing something different?
It’s been a long day. Proud of my body working hard and trying to complete some tasks. He’s got a lot of work to do, but this will do it for today!
The Astronaut on Earth 
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