CMove-5

Thats Colorado Move minus 5 days, which means I am leaving for CO on Friday. I'm on my 3rd cup of koffe right now as I blog away. Still drinking my New Mexico Pinon roast. Super delicious.

Today is the 28th which means, that 6months and 2 days ago I was carelessly run over by a truck while out riding. Everyday is a blessing in my eyes even though there are those days of frustration. For the most part, the majority of my healing is complete. The only residual pains I continue to experience are pain in my pelvis after long periods of standing, and continued weakness in the left shoulder. The shoulder is the biggest issue. I've definitely had to reconsider tasks or actions that prior, I would have not even thought about. Two weeks ago, I started doing my endurance strengthening program to help build endurance strength to last throughout the long season. I think it was probably the high-rep cable pulls and a few shoulder presses(light weight) that aggrevated the shoulder. It pretty much sucks. Yeah, its not constant pain but its a nagging discomfort. It poses the greatest discomfort when I take deep breaths. Basically, I feel a strain on my left side when I take a deep breath which makes me think that the muscle/ligaments/bone/etc are still damaged goods and are not operating properly when breathing. so doing high intensity training which was on task last week really bothered me. I admit that I lost some mental edge b/c i was getting frustrated with my power numbers and the feeling i got when i was breathing hard. But I have to remain vigilant and positive b/c hell, I'm alive and I could be in a much worse situation.

When i was in the hospital, I had a very difficult time accepting help. For those that were near me(mom, michael, grandparents), they can remember my words, "I've got to learn to do this." At first it was raising out of bed and sitting up, believe me, a fractured spine, shoulder, and pelvis and lots of poison ivy make this difficult. Then it was getting out of bed and walking across the room. Then walking across the hall then walking out of the hospital on my own w/o a chair! When I flying after being discharged I refused to take a special ride to the plane. always responding to my mom's request, "mom, I've got to learn how to do this." I did take a trolley ride in Cincinatti but that was after walking around for awhile and I was completely fatigued.

What i'm saying here is that we all have our misfortunes. Not to put a degree on your misfortunte or mine, but we all have misfortunes. So what should you take away from this? Before you complain, think about what you are complaining about. Then take a few minutes and look around at people around you. I'd bet that your problem seems less and less after just a few minutes of people watching. I'm not on a high horse here, I'm just exposing my secrets on how I have learned to deal with my accident and what has motivated me to recover and get back on the bike and give everything to it. This is what Colorado is about for me. Giving everything to see what I'm capable of b/c in the paraphrased words of Twain,"its not the things you did,its the things you didn't do" that you will regret in 20 years.

::::Stepping down from soapbox::::

Have a good monday,
Matthew