WALK with ANNA

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WALK with ANNA

Nature lover • World traveler • Pediatrician • T12 incomplete warrior • 2.9.2020 •

03/28/2023

So… I did a thing…

I went adaptive skiing!

Everything about my experience with Achieve Tahoe was absolutely amazing! It was my first time in a truly adaptive environment since my accident, because the pandemic and living in Hawaii both kept me isolated in their own ways.

For the first time, I was surrounded by people who genuinely care, who know how to speak to you and how to move around you in space, people who know how to help you, and when, people who make you feel like you belong, who make you feel comfortable being exactly who you are, and who support you in achieving something you did not know was possible.

Thank you to every single Achieve Tahoe team member who made this experience more than I could ever have hoped for! And an extra thank you to my amazing instructors who believed in me way more than they should have (but thankfully they did)!

You can help support Achieve Tahoe and the wonderful people who work there, and hear other life changing stories such as that of my instructor, who honored me by including me in his:

“My life changed when Bryan, my eldest son with cerebral palsy, first went skiing on my birthday in 2011. It was the best birthday present I could ever have, for I saw firsthand that my perception of Bryan's barriers to participation were self-imposed and that people with disabilities deserve equal access to recreational opportunities. This has become a mission in my life, and I changed careers to work for Achieve Tahoe to support this cause. I am reaching out to you to help support others with disabilities find the health, confidence, and independence that recreation provides. You can support Bryan and others with disabilities by making a donation to Team Bryan, where all proceeds go to support Achieve Tahoe, a Tahoe-based non-profit that provides year round recreational opportunities for people with disabilities.“

His take on my first day on four point skis and the biggest hurdle I had to overcome? Check out the comments ⬇️

03/17/2023

My first time riding a bike since my accident went so much better than expected! Getting started was hard because of my weak hips and core but once I had momentum my body remembered what to do and it really was just like riding a bike!

02/20/2023

The diagnosis of incomplete paralysis came with the promise of recovery for these first few years after my accident.

I took that promise and turned it into my superpower; I used it to give myself the strength I needed to achieve the amazing recovery I have.

But that promise has at times proven to be a double-edged sword, a race without an end and with new obstacles at every turn. After three years of giving my all I am exhausted…

Since my accident in February of 2020 my life has been a whirlwind of learning to adapt to my new circumstances only to have everything change again in a heartbeat and to have to conquer new challenges all over again.

And don’t get me wrong, the changes have meant continued recovery, and when I think about the last three years of my life, so much of it has been amazing and beyond my wildest dreams!

Thinking about all the progress I have made, from having no movement from the waist down to regaining strength and balance and being able to live my life (mostly) independently again, from living my life in a wheelchair to having one on (mostly) crutches, and being able to walk down the aisle on the day of my wedding last year.

I am someone who lives off of the promise and the ability to keep pushing myself, but what my body craves now more than anything is balance.

To feel complete not in the sense of a complete paralysis, but complete in my prognosis the way that complete paraplegics are. To not have to suffer through the endlessly recurring destabilizations, to know what to expect. To finally be able to settle into this new body and this new life. To dream and set goals for a future rather than react to the constant curveballs of my present.

I will always be grateful for the independence I have been able to regain, but a part of me cannot help but wish I were a little bit more balanced, and a little less incomplete.

10/23/2022

This is incomplete paralysis. Can you believe it? I still can’t…

My first time standing after my Achilles’ tendon lengthening surgery felt like a dream, and I still cannot describe the feeling of relief of being able to balance on my own two feet again.

Weeks later, I still cry tears of joy and disbelief.

There are no words.

The opportunities seem endless again.

09/06/2022

You’ll be able to walk with both legs in casts they said…

September is spinal cord injury awareness month and September 5th is spinal cord injury awareness day

09/02/2022

To start off let’s talk about the three stages of recovery seen in incomplete paralysis.

My body flew through the first phase, the flaccid phase, in which the nerves aren’t firing and the muscles below the level of the injury waste away. As the healing began, my nerves started firing again and my muscles started to tense, but overly so. Within weeks after the accident, I had entered the spastic phase, and the muscles in my legs were so tense I was maxed out on muscle relaxers. Within months, my calves had gotten to the point of constant flexing and forcing my foot and toes down, and I was relying on Botox injections to try to relax those muscles.

For two years now, no amount of therapies ranging from massage and physical therapy to acupuncture and electro stim, not even being in straightening ankle braces 24/7 could overcome the power forcing my feet into a pointed position and making it impossible to place my heels onto the ground. And if walking weren’t hard enough to relearn as a paraplegic, doing it on your toes is absolutely impossible.

And it hurt. The muscle tension, or tone itself is like a constant, low grade flex, and the spasms like uncontrollable cramping, as the ankle position forced my other joints to bend and twist to compensate, causing knee and hip pain.

I did the best I could, and it’s taken all of these two years for me to accept even that. But no matter what I did, my ankle slowly froze into that position, even now that I have reached the balanced phase of my recovery in which my muscle tension has leveled out (a bit).

Surgery to lengthen my Achilles’ tendons became the last option, and after two years, I was finally ready for this next big step.

I had my surgery late July, and after four hours woke up in the recovery room with my amazing rainbow casts in celebration of 🌈

05/14/2022

The world is returning to normal. But I am not.

When I was admitted to the hospital after my accident on February 9th, 2020, COVID was nothing more than a simple coronavirus. Six weeks later, I was discharged into a two week quarantine just a few days after COVID had been declared a pandemic and the world had shut down.

The pandemic is all my para-life has known, and I have both hated and loved it. The lockdown made receiving outpatient medical care and physical rehabilitation nearly impossible and delays in receiving treatments in those early days of my paralysis led to severe complications that I will be dealing with for the rest of my life. But at the same time it made the world stand still, almost as if to empathize with and support my limitations.

The world is returning to normal. But I am not.

And I don’t know how to bridge that gap. I’ve never had to. Suddenly, the world is able to travel, to go dancing, to go to dinners or concerts or parties. But I am no longer a part of that able-bodied world the way I was the last time life was normal.

The world is returning to normal. But I am not.

05/05/2022

On days when I miss that nature-loving girl who would never give up the opportunity to go exploring, it’s good to have friends that encourage me to always be my best, crazy, hippie self.

04/22/2022

I was surprised by how seldom I cried in the hospital those first few weeks after the injury. But not being able to get out of my wheelchair to feel the grass under my feet was hard for me to accept.

During my last week in the hospital, I managed to find a spot that allowed me to not only touch the grass, but to transfer onto and even lie in it.

Finding a way back into nature helped me finally start feeling like myself again, and it continues to be my mental haven and my biggest motivation to keep fighting.

Happy everyone!

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Honolulu, HI

Website

https://www.gofundme.com/f/walkwithanna/

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