Slowly Learning

Tomorrow will be two weeks since I had my tooth removed. This past week has been one of slowly learning my new boundaries.

I have helped adults and children with spinal cord injuries learn how to adapt to their new body. Using adaptive equipment such as wheelchairs, mouth sticks, and electronic aides can be a steep learning curve. This experience has taught me again what it's like to start from scratch.

For most surgeries, the doctor has prescribed pain medicine. However, since I can't feel whatever was worked on, I've never taken any. This is the first time I remember taking anything more than once to help cope with major discomfort.

On Tuesday, my day assistant wasn't able to come and dad took most of the day off work to stay with me. We had a few errands to run, so the two of us left the house a little before lunch. Dad and I stopped at Culver's and then parked in one of the nearby campgrounds overlooking Iowa's largest lake. I thought chicken strips would be easy to bite for our picnic, but I was wrong.

Applying force to the left side of my mouth resulted in pain with subsequent chewing compounding the problem. I was only able to push through about half the meal. After lunch, the next stop was Walmart to satisfy our lists.

Driving through the store, pushing on my wheelchair's controls with my chin resulted in pain and every movement. I tried using my upper lip or other parts of my face, but they didn't work well enough to safely drive and not run into anything.

Thankfully, one of the stitches fell out Friday and has made a vast improvement. I'm still completely relying on others to help with computer control when I'm flat, but it's becoming easier when I have sit time.

While watching an abundance of YouTube these past two weeks, I have been thinking of the time I took for granted and didn't use my mouth for beneficial tasks. Instead of writing or working, I took time for entertainment instead. It's a problem in the quad life and everyone that needs to be cautioned against. I look forward to further progress this week and using the time God gives me for good use.