Hey all, as with the rest of you, I am glad to see Eric back at Care Meridian and blogging... I was reading through some comments and catching up when I saw this one from some time ago on my last update:

Shahin
Maybe we could set up a calendar on the web where everyone can log onto and sign up for a day to bring food for Eric. It would also be helpful to know what Eric would and would not like to eat. Is there a way you can set one up on this? Thanks so much for keeping us updated!
Terri

Well Terri, we are planning exactly this for when Eric is back in Santa Clara at Valley Med. Please keep checking back here as we will post the Calendar info here...

Thanks for suggestion Terri.

Back from the edge, yet again

Actual photo of a kootie in action

Hey There

Sorry for the delayed post, had some Internet access issues and then, even more fun, just got out of the hospital after a fun 5 day stay for sepsis.

So a bit of background here, as you may know spinal cord injuries come with a long list of other interesting side dishes in addition the the main entree of paralysis. Loss of bowel and bladder control are most notable, and so with the bladder issue comes the constant and persistent threat of bladder infections due to the need to get the pee out using an assortment of medical plumbing known as catheters, basically tubes you stick in that special part of your body that tap into the bladder and allow the pee out. There is one type that lives in there all the time called a "foley" catheter, and while convenient it is a major source of kooties getting into your bladder.

Now the thing that just happened to me is that I had a bladder infection but was asymptomatic, and so without symptoms we didn't know that trouble was brewing. After a while it decided to go into full-blown sepsis to get my attention and that's when things got very not-so-good very quickly. Spent 2 1/2 days in ICU and another 2 1/2 days in the hospital getting hammered with 3 major antibiotics and a few other wicked drugs that I'd rather not experience again.

I'm back at Care Meridian now, recovering quickly. We've discontinued the use of the Foley and I now do what is called "straight intermittent catherization" which means i do it myself every 4 hours or so. This is how it is for any SCI person who has lost bladder control, for many it is for the rest of their lives. Maybe me too. We'll see.

Why all this gory detail? I wanted this blog thing to be both a way to let you all know what's up with me but also to help you understand what life can be like for the paralyzed. It is much more complicated than I ever thought, and fraught with a lot more danger than I ever suspected. Before WW II and antibiotics, over 60% of SCI patients died from sepsis brought on by a bladder infection. Apparently I almost did too, but dodged a bullet once again, in major part to the good care I receive here.

Soooo.... I'll be trying to get more frequent updates, but hopefully less drama. :-)

What do you mean I have a tail?

Actual x-ray of me, obviously right after the accident.

Can you spot the problem? ;-)

I have a tail. So do you. Apparently everyone does and most don't even know it. Might make a good bar bet.

Seems your spinal cord only goes down to the upper part of your lumbar spine (your spine has 4 parts, cervical, thoracic, lumbar and finally sacral parts, moving from top to bottom). At the bottom of the spinal cord is the cauda equina, which as all of you know is Latin for "horse's tail". This is a bundle of nerves that branches out to control the lower parts of your body, things like legs, bowel and bladder, and of course your 'fun zone'.

This is the part of me that got smacked hardest apparently, at least from a central nervous system perspective, and why I am paralyzed. My horse's tail is unhappy. Maybe a good combing would help...

So far from everything the docs are seeing, none of the nerves are cut, nor is the cord cut. It seems the nerves are just very unhappy that they got smacked around and squished and so they have decided to go on strike. The big question is how long they plan on doing this and if there is anything I can do to get them back to work.

There is a lot of swelling still in the spinal cord and the tail section, and this swelling needs to subside before any type of recovery can start to make itself apparent. I've been doing research to find out what if anything can be done to help this along, as you can imagine there are a lot of folks and places saying they can help initiate and/or accelerate recovery but not a lot of data substantiating the claims. I'll keep looking into it but for now it's still mostly about waiting for the swelling to go down and for my wounds to finish healing.

If there is anything you guys would like me to talk about please feel free to let me know, I'm just kinda of winging it here, hope it's interesting.

Sweet dreams and fine machines in pieces on the ground...

Stole that from a James Taylor song. Seems apropos to this entry. I thought I'd write quickly about what actually happened and how I got in this pickle, and then ramble a bit. Mental rambling is a skill I possess in abundance so here we go.

The "how" I got here is pretty easy. When we start a race we line up on the starting grid in rows, and are in pretty close proximity to each other. It's not uncommon for some of us to make contact when the green flag drops because the bikes are so powerful they are hard to launch in a straight line. At the start of my first race of the day, I was on the grid, the flag dropped and after moving about 30-40 yards another rider came over from the right side and made contact with me. His handlebars locked up with mine and as they were twisted out of my hands my bike went down.

This left me in a very bad spot, bouncing around on the ground in a stampede of race bikes. Another racer from farther back on the grid was unable to avoid hitting me, as is usually the case in this situation, and he hit me doing ~ 60 MPH. This sent me flying about 15 feet in the air, and then I landed on the track surface.

Some folks have asked me if I regret racing and my answer is always an emphatic "No". I raced for 7 years, dodged many a bullet in that time, took a few hits, but the rewards far outweighed the costs to me. I've met a number of fantastic people, I have myself grown and expanded my willingness and ability to interact with people, and also developed a new level of confidence in myself that i think could only have come from mastering something as difficult and dangerous as motorcycle racing.

You always know in the back of your mind that if you play you will at some point need to pay, and every once in a while the costs are more that you thought they would be. That's the case here, but now it's time to play the cards I've been dealt. I won't lie, some days I'd rather fold that stay in the game, but for now I'll keep trying to make the best out of this shitty hand.

And now the fun begins... ;-)

Hello from Eric!

Hello everyone, I finally remembered to have Shahin get me posting rights to this blog so from now on I will try to keep it up-to-date with an entry every few days.

Hmmmm, what to say in my first post? I guess mostly a huge amount of thanks to everyone who's been offering their support and positive thoughts. I've been amazed at the outpouring of support and find myself very lucky to have so many in my life.

This is week 10 now, been in bed for almost 10 full weeks and it's very interesting. We did a CT scan last Friday and are getting the results back, things are looking good so far, the wound sems to be healing well and on schedule. I've started a weight-lifting program, albeit in bed, but it's a start and I've already graduated to 10 lb dumbbells, a major feat apparently. The therapists are easily impressed I guess. I'm pushing for more weight but they told me to chill. Okey dokey...

The food here is good, real food, not the stuff you get in a hospital. The staff are great as well, it's a good place to be as I heal up and get ready for my new life.

That's it for now, hopefully I'll come up with something more interesting to post later.

Take care everyone.