I wrote this on Feb 7th, 2016.....
"I dunno what its gonna take me to get back on that saddle... But Ill be damned if I don't try harder everyday... every moment..."
Am I back on the saddle then... Nope! Not even close....
BUT...
I did do this.... https://twitter.com/VickramKrishna/status/752152610963005440
And this... https://twitter.com/VickramKrishna/status/758675554262364160
Last Wednesday I went to the optometrist to find out if there were any updates to my visual deficiencies....
Oh no no!! Don't get your hopes too high. I am still ~14% blind and my eye movement in my right eye is restricted. (-1mm - +2mm in the vertical axis). Diplopia is my new best friend.
However I had a 20/10 acuity in the combined vision and 20/15, 20/10 in my left & right eyes respectively.....
I remember how the ophthalmologists said I didn't have perfect vision EVEN before the accident. And immediately after the accident... lets just say you could have place a boulder right in front of me and I would have pile driven into it and split my skull even before I realized... it was something ridiculous like 20/120 in one of the tests.
Coming back to my last eye test... so how did I do that?
I honestly cant give you ONE reason.
But I can give you a bunch of things I did religiously(most of them even before the accident), that might have helped.
Wait.. How did all this pay off? What does it have to do with my eye tests??
After the tests my doc said, "based on the earlier results and your condition post accident, nothing you did should have helped you get your ACUITY back... let alone get it better than before the accident... but this might just be your body acknowledging that you have taken good care of it"... I wanted to tell him the beer did its job then... :P
Jokes aside.. I still don't know why I could read 2 rows below the row of characters that demarcate 20/20 on an eye chart... the vision of normal human eyes. The doctors couldn't explain it either.
I'd like to think the accident gave me super human strength to see microscopic organisms with my naked eye. a.la Bruce Banner turning into the might Hulk after being exposed to toxic chemicals or how Spiderman sprung out after Peter Parker was bitten by a deadly spider.... But nope.. no luck there.
So what changed?
All I know is that, if I did things "specifically", "particularly" & "religiously" before... I just dialed it up to 11 since the day I could walk with a walker in the hospital. Nothing was MORE or LESS important. As long as I thought it would help me get back on the saddle, it was worth doing it. 100%... all the way. 99% wasn't good enough.
In other words.. I tried hard and gave it all... everyday.... every moment.. Always reminding myself that anything worth doing is worth doing all the way.
Again, nothing what I did might have ACTUALLY helped me, at least medically speaking.
Or maybe EVERYTHING helped my body figure out how to fix itself.
All I know is this.. no matter what I did, I did it CONSISTENTLY and maybe even adamantly.
"I dunno what its gonna take me to get back on that saddle... But Ill be damned if I don't try harder everyday... every moment..."
Am I back on the saddle then... Nope! Not even close....
BUT...
I did do this.... https://twitter.com/VickramKrishna/status/752152610963005440
And this... https://twitter.com/VickramKrishna/status/758675554262364160
Last Wednesday I went to the optometrist to find out if there were any updates to my visual deficiencies....
Oh no no!! Don't get your hopes too high. I am still ~14% blind and my eye movement in my right eye is restricted. (-1mm - +2mm in the vertical axis). Diplopia is my new best friend.
However I had a 20/10 acuity in the combined vision and 20/15, 20/10 in my left & right eyes respectively.....
I remember how the ophthalmologists said I didn't have perfect vision EVEN before the accident. And immediately after the accident... lets just say you could have place a boulder right in front of me and I would have pile driven into it and split my skull even before I realized... it was something ridiculous like 20/120 in one of the tests.
Coming back to my last eye test... so how did I do that?
I honestly cant give you ONE reason.
But I can give you a bunch of things I did religiously(most of them even before the accident), that might have helped.
- I drank a glass of carrot, beet & lime juice at least 4 times a week
- I had my multivitamins everyday and hit the sack by 9:30pm at least 4 times a week
- I started boxing lessons and started doing at least 1000 mts swimming in each session
- I did my eye chart everyday and attempted recognizing everyday things even in diplopic vision
- I had a 6 method reminder system based on the priority, importance, urgency and part of my life for all my short term and long term tasks and objectives (And yes I made writing this blog a task to be completed in my task list.. Judge me all you want..)
- I worked out at least 5 times a week
- I did at least 1 art work a month
- I also drank a lot of beer.. AFTER every physical target achievement... :P and ate more pizzas since the accident than the 4 yrs preceding it..
Wait.. How did all this pay off? What does it have to do with my eye tests??
After the tests my doc said, "based on the earlier results and your condition post accident, nothing you did should have helped you get your ACUITY back... let alone get it better than before the accident... but this might just be your body acknowledging that you have taken good care of it"... I wanted to tell him the beer did its job then... :P
Jokes aside.. I still don't know why I could read 2 rows below the row of characters that demarcate 20/20 on an eye chart... the vision of normal human eyes. The doctors couldn't explain it either.
I'd like to think the accident gave me super human strength to see microscopic organisms with my naked eye. a.la Bruce Banner turning into the might Hulk after being exposed to toxic chemicals or how Spiderman sprung out after Peter Parker was bitten by a deadly spider.... But nope.. no luck there.
So what changed?
All I know is that, if I did things "specifically", "particularly" & "religiously" before... I just dialed it up to 11 since the day I could walk with a walker in the hospital. Nothing was MORE or LESS important. As long as I thought it would help me get back on the saddle, it was worth doing it. 100%... all the way. 99% wasn't good enough.
In other words.. I tried hard and gave it all... everyday.... every moment.. Always reminding myself that anything worth doing is worth doing all the way.
Again, nothing what I did might have ACTUALLY helped me, at least medically speaking.
Or maybe EVERYTHING helped my body figure out how to fix itself.
I did em shoulder exercises even wen my scapula was screaming in pain.. or my knee cracked every time I did a squat... or my eyes hurt when I did eye exercises... or I was mentally broken after trying those cognitive tests and failed repeatedly, but kept trying till I finished them... or when I couldn't push past a mile or run anywhere close to the speed I used to and yet pushed myself to run those 5 miles.
And here I am...
AFTER clearing my clinical assessment for driving... after clearing my vision and cognitive testing to get a special instructions permit.... AND clearing a behind the wheel assessment with my occupational therapist. Never have I been so happy to drive a Toyota Corolla.. Boy did I feel I was in a Ferrari.... and that kinda reflected in my driving... so much so that, one of the feedback I got from him was that, I drove predictably but quite fast. In fact he had a mild heart attack when he saw me accelerating hard on a ramp when the traffic was slowing, braking late but progressively hard to stop the car, when the traffic came to a stand still.
I dunno, but that sounded like a compliment to me and I wanted to tell him, they didn't name me "Speedy Gonzales" in the hospital for no reason. But he said I needed to slow down and blamed it on my head injury. :P ... Jokes aside I took his advice and did sign up for driving classes.
I dunno, but that sounded like a compliment to me and I wanted to tell him, they didn't name me "Speedy Gonzales" in the hospital for no reason. But he said I needed to slow down and blamed it on my head injury. :P ... Jokes aside I took his advice and did sign up for driving classes.
Maybe I was too ambitious in thinking that, I could do a 5K run, by the end of January. I was a few months late but I did it
nonetheless. The important thing was persistence.
I still remember telling my moto friends that I am going to start with cycling to train my brain again on maintaining my center of balance.... retrain my brain on spacial awareness to start riding and driving. And the first day I did it, I looked like a real character with my moto off road knee guards and elbow guards and vibrams 5 fingers. But everything had a reason. The shoes will help me feel the pedal and avoid any grip loss issues and the off road pads would provide some industrial grade protection to my already broken bones.
And I wore all of this to ride around my parking lot... I kid you not! I went round and round 20 times and looked like a complete weirdo doing it, to all the strangers staring at me. But 8 weeks later, I rode 16 miles in all.
Again have I gotten back on the saddle yet? Nope.. But, I have taken the first step to that 1000 mile moto trip I used to take every year... and.. I am trying harder.. everyday.. every moment.
I still remember telling my moto friends that I am going to start with cycling to train my brain again on maintaining my center of balance.... retrain my brain on spacial awareness to start riding and driving. And the first day I did it, I looked like a real character with my moto off road knee guards and elbow guards and vibrams 5 fingers. But everything had a reason. The shoes will help me feel the pedal and avoid any grip loss issues and the off road pads would provide some industrial grade protection to my already broken bones.
And I wore all of this to ride around my parking lot... I kid you not! I went round and round 20 times and looked like a complete weirdo doing it, to all the strangers staring at me. But 8 weeks later, I rode 16 miles in all.
Again have I gotten back on the saddle yet? Nope.. But, I have taken the first step to that 1000 mile moto trip I used to take every year... and.. I am trying harder.. everyday.. every moment.
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