This is the hardest post I will ever wriite--and it will be the first of many. This post is hard to write because it is being written from a hospital bed, a bed I will be stuck in for months. This statement is humiliating because I have spent the last 32 years thinking I am smarter and more careful than my paralyzed peers. No more do I have the right to feel superior. Like many others I have developed a huge pressure sore. Let me be more blunt. I have a giant 4x4 hole in my right hip. I am learning much about modern wound care. I have a KCI wound vacuum on my hip. I hope it will heal by Christmas. My life between now and then will be costly in the extreme. All that I do daily is compromised. From a practical perspective I am working on the logistics and they are complex and daunting. For now I am trapped in the hospital until medically stable.
The point of this post is to explain my silence and start a daily record of my long physical recovery and return to independence. I have never read about such an experience. It is my hope that paralyzed people and others wish severe skin issues will read my words and learn from my mistake and experiences. So please check your skin, really carefully. Get naked, get a miror, or better yet, a friend and give yourself a once over. Too tired to write more more but much, much more to come.