Great Weekend

Well it's been a great weekend so far. Bryson loves the prosthetic. He's fascinated with the piston in the back of it. He's been very open to it and very happy to see me back up on 2 legs, even if it's with a cane right now. Also, Kentucky is playing for the national championship so that makes for a great weekend.

I have to say both boys have been wonderful. They are great helpers, they are ready to help me get off of my cane and get to the zoo or aquarium. I'm hoping in another month or so I can make that a reality for them. Right now I can only walk constantly for about 20-30 minutes before it starts to hurt and get uncomfortable. It's getting to be time to have some changes made to the socket again, the leg is shrinking down and I'm going to start losing suction again. Same steps as last time I suppose, they'll add the diaphragm to help keep suction, then once I've got to the point where that doesn't hold anymore I'll get another new socket made. Hopefully it'll last longer, the hope is that I can go a month or 2 on this one, then 3 or 4 on the next and so on. I feel like I'm making progress, it's just a very steep uphill climb, and one that is slower than I'd like to go. I just want to start exercising and getting this weight off of me. Sure, I can do a few exercises as home without the leg on, but I'm ready to go for long walks and get to where the leg feels like an extension of myself. Currently, it still feels like I'm a toddler learning the ropes again. Oh well. Till next time. GO CATS!!!

Getting the Boys

Excited for tomorrow. Tomorrow I get my sons. For the first time in nearly a month we get to have Logan and Bryson both, and we get to keep them till Monday!!! I'm not sure if I can do it, but I'm very tempted to try to take them to the zoo and just see how long I can walk. I want them to see that nothing can stop them. That no matter what the obstacle you can plow through and use that obstacle to be more than you ever thought you could be in the first place.

During this journey from cocky paramedic to invalid (hell it's how I have felt for the past year) to working my way back to getting to be that cocky paramedic again. I have learned that while there are good days and bad days on the average I can wake up and say I am alive. I am more alive today than I was 2 years ago. I have been through a deep valley, I should be dead. How many people fall 11 stories and live to tell the tell. Yes, I lost a leg. I didn't lose my life or my mind or my ability. I feel like I can still get on the truck and function in the back just the same as I did before. The hurdle now is the transition from scene to truck that will be the issue. I'm trying to decide on my next design for the leg, soon I will be moving to a soft socket with a carbon fiber cage. I'm thinking about phrases to wrap the cage in. I want something in either celtic or english. I was looking at something either funny or motivational or a mixture of both. You guys help me come up with some phrases. I'm ready to be back to who I was. I want to be that cocky medic again, I want to walk into a scene and prove that I am the conductor. During my time as a Preceptor I tried to teach my preceptees that as a medic you are the conductor of the scene, just the same as an orchastra, if you are disjointed and out of control, your scene will be the same. If you are cool, calm, and collected then your scene will be the same. I can think of dozens of runs where I was cool as a cucumber but inside I was a cyclone of thoughts and worries. I want that feeling again, It's that feeling that I miss more than anything.

Angels Among Us

It's odd what dreams may come...here I am trying to sleep and all I can think of is the person who helped me while I was alone at the bottom of that waterfall. I don't know if he was really there, or if he was a figment of my mind, or if he was what my faith would call an angel. All I know is while lying there he helped me. I frantically begged him to tell me if Kate was ok, then had a vision of Kate walking back down the mountain with her son in hand and our friends girls in tow. He calmed me, gave me a peace that I by no means should have had. The medical/rational side of my brain tells me it was either a real person or a hallucination from the trauma and the massive endorphin release from my injuries. While my spiritual side tells me I was met by something supernatural. How else could I see Kate walking down that hill, feel her fear and anguish of not knowing how I was. The first responders I have spoken to have made no mention of anyone being with me. I was alone when they got there. This isn't the end of the oddities or blessings, depending on your belief structure. I had said ever since I met the man that a certain physician is the only person I would trust to save my life. This doctor received a call prior to ever knowing I was coming. The caller did not identify himself, only told my doc that "Joe Riffe is being flown in from Fort Knox, he's hurt very bad and needs you." Moments later the bat phone rang at University and Air Methods advised them I was in the air and on the way. I haven't remembered these things since my first hospitalization. I can feel the burning in my ankle, the last feeling I would ever have in that part of my leg. Even before the amputation I couldn't really feel anything from my knee down. The last sensation I remember is the searing pain I was in while this mysterious stranger tried his best to comfort me. As I have said before, I crawled out from under the spray of the falls with my home made splint. Once I made it to my final position this person cradled me in his arms, showed me Kate and was gone when Fort Knox fire and rescue arrived.

In my life I have experienced many things in which I can't explain. I've been blessed enough to watch life return and leave. I've been that person holding onto someone as life left them. I've seen the blessing of life return and that person walk out of the hospital to his family. Never have I had this favor returned to me by a stranger until that day. I can't explain who or what this person was, I can say he had an integral part in my survival. I begged God to let me live. To give me the chance to have a life with Kate and our sons. He gave me that, and part of that came from the comfort of a total stranger.

I try to relate this blog to EMS when I can. There is no more pure representation of who we should be as a profession than this person. Take away all the medical technology and medical theology and we are all strangers welcomed into the lives of others at the worst moment of their life. It amazed me the comfort of a simple touch, just knowing I wasn't dying alone. I'm not saying we shouldn't treat our patients and use all the fun gadgets we get to play with, just remember, sometimes the best thing you can do for your patient is assure them that they aren't alone and a simple touch can take away so much anxiety. I know. I experienced it first hand. There are Angels among us, sometimes you get the blessing of being that Angel.

I was Raised That way

Growing up in rural West Virginia I had no plans to be in Louisville, Ky. I had no plans to be a paramedic, or even to work in healthcare. I was going to grow up to play either in the NFL or NBA. There were many days spent on a concrete basketball court honing the craft, learning to dribble the ball through my legs, perfecting my crossover, my turn around jumper. Then, as often happens, I grew up. Of course, there's a large story between shooting 3 pointers and starting 14 gauges, but needless to say, I never saw this path coming. It just sort of happened. I had plans made. I was going to do so much, then I went hiking. Once again...plans change. I've learned a valuable lesson here, being able to bend. If you notice no matter how strong the winds, the trees that can bend are always left standing. I'm learning to bend.

My family grew up in the coal fields of West Virginia, we had really 2 options for future job prospects. There was deep mine coal mining or strip mine coal mining. That's about it. Sadly, things have gotten worse back home. Don't get me wrong, there are wonderful hard working people there who would do anything they can to help a total stranger. It's this upbringing that has lead me into the healthcare field, well that and my mom being a nurse and my dad being a truck driver Paramedicine is the natural choice. If those two professions had a child a paramedic would be born. If anything has to be said, my country upbringing has taught me to be flexible. Country folk are some of the most flexible around, we make our own food if we have to either grow it or kill it, either way there will be food on the table and always enough to feed a neighbor.

So, how does this tie in to me now? I've been asked on numerous occasions if I feel like I made the wrong decision? Would I keep the leg if I could go back? With that in mind, even a flexible tree loses a limb, it's still a tree, it still bears fruit. Just seems that I may have to change the scenery behind me. Even if I have to change the lights and sirens for whatever may come...I'll be ready. I was raised to be ready. I say yes ma'am, howdy, I have a twang, I'm country and I will survive. It's what we do. So, I have learned the long way that life will through many obstacles my way, there will always be multiple paths, but in the end I'll get to where I'm supposed to be, Yes Ma'am, Yes Sir, I was raised that way.

Knee adjustments

More adjustments to the knee tomorrow. Time to take away the safety net. We are going to lessen the amount of resistance the leg takes to bend the joint. This means it will be easier and smoother to walk, but at the same time it's going to be easier for me to buckle the knee. I'll be using it on the treadmill to start so I can get a better feel for the knee and let it become more of a part of who I am. I'm really thinking of letting the boys name the leg, make it part of the family. I mean it's really going to be a part of my life forever. I'm nervous about giving up control but tired of the extra effort it takes to walk. Hopefully this will make it less tiresome. Today I spent a few more hours using the cane to walk around and it's starting to hurt less and that's promising. I don't know when I'm going to feel like me again but I'm finally getting there. I'm ready to move on. I'll let you know how tomorrow goes...at least I've lost the fear of falling and now I'm ready to push myself harder than before. Gotta get this leg into shape

I need a Vacation

I'm contemplating a vacation for Kate and I. I know that times are rough around the old "palatial prosthetic promenade" but we need this. Obviously we have the monetary issue and I know the second that we do there will be those who say that we are spending money we don't have, albeit somewhat true. In the past year, Kate and I have been through Hell and back, and I just want a few days outside of the flames. Kate and I have never been away together, the only time we have spent outside of home together is spending nights in the hospital room. I'm learning to walk now, I've been able walk a few hundred yards using nothing but a cane. I am moving forward. The treadmill has and will continue to help me fine tune my skills, I've already started to notice when the socket is not feeling correct, the adjustments that need to be made to the resistance that the knee so I can find that fine balance between falling and walking. After all, walking is nothing more than controlled falling. A constant fight against the cosmos. That devil that is centrifugal force.

So, now, onto vacation prospects. Yes, I need cheap and only for a few days. Just 2 days where Kate and I can get outside of Louisville, away from these every day stressors of doctor's visits, childcare, work, house cleaning, just everything that has piled up over the last year. I thank God for all the blessings we have. I got the leg I so desperately needed, I have the right prosthesist team, the right physical therapist, what I don't have is the time to get back on Louisville Metro's schedule. My year is coming up quickly and it would not be safe for me or my partner to attempt to get back on an ambulance in this shape. So, I want the chance to go out with the woman I love and just celebrate being us, not being "the prosthetic medic" or Kate being "Joe's fiancee" just being the collective "Us." I'm so ready...now if I can just find a coupon for a free weekend somewhere within 120 miles of here.


As an addendum...I decided to take down the post concerning my past and my abuses. While, I am not ashamed or wanting to hide my history of abuse, I felt that given the nature of this blog I would remove it for the time being. This is my history, it's a part of who I am, and I don't want to put that on you.

Country boy can survive

Walked on a treadmill today for the first time. That's the advantage of my physical therapist being an instructor at Bellermine. It was good to feel the knee really work and I'm getting to the point where I can identify the changes I need made to let the knee be optimal for me. I'm coming to terms with the changes that are quickly approaching. Part of that was a chance encounter with an amputee that lost his leg over 40 years ago. He saw me on the news and as I was leaving pt he stopped to speak with me. He was amazed thatvi was wearing shorts and wasn't wearing some sort of cosmetic cover over the prosthesis. I guess I just have the attitude that you're either going to take me as I am or you can get over it. This is me now. I'm finally ok with that. I can look at myself in the mirror with and without the leg and realize that a leg didn't make me who I am. The great part is he said maybe he'd try shorts again. I miss my former life but I see the potential to change the world since the surgery. How many people can really say they feel that way?

Now I just have to regain the feeling of being useful. I fight self doubt and depression constantly. I am your classic country boy, I take my emotions and bury them until they either force their way out or I find