The snow really did a number on me having time to update here.  New news is that I have fully edited 5 chapters specifically to include in hardcopy proposals that I will be sending out hopefully this week.  Honestly though, I can’t wait for winter to be over.  I hate this weather.

The best part about it is that when it snows a foot in one night, I don’t have to go to the gym and feel bad that I can’t get there.  Shoveling a porch, sidewalk to the driveway, driveway, entire sidewalk and clearing the street in front of the house to be able to park the cars there takes about 2 hours in total and burns more calories than any of my gym workouts probably burn.  It’s a pain in the butt (to put it nicely) to try and commute in the wintery mess, but man is it fun to shovel around.

It’s a full body workout and then some, much more so based on the reactions of my co-workers and people I see around complaining about how sore their backs are from shoveling.  It gets tiring for me, but mainly because of the speed I plow through it, however my back never hurts during it.  Maybe people are lifting too much snow.  I always break a section of snow into the top half and bottom half.  It may require me to do twice as many scoops, but I also get through twice the amount of shoveling twice as quickly as anyone else in my neighborhood.  Wearing your ipod definitely helps the time pass by.

And we are supposed to get ice tomorrow.  Looks like more shoveling at hand.  Ice is never fun to shovel though.  It’s hard, it never wants to break up and it is heavy!  People are already complaining about their backs.  Tomorrow should be a great vacation for everyone in the Maryland-DC area…

I read in the paper yesterday how she is being transported to another hospital in Texas to start physical therapy.  The rest of the story, which got cut off as I uploaded the image, said that rehab is teaching you how to help yourself get your life back on track.  From what we know, she had a lot of luck on her side when she got shot, but from personal experience I think she has a lot of work to do to attain anything near where she was before.

It’s not only the trauma.  She’ll have to overcome the physical limitations, learn how her brain and body has been rewired, figure out new ways to adapt, deal with the frustration of not being able to do things that she can not only think through, but still feel the memory of doing before.  It’s not only the physical rehabilitation she has to dogmatically push beyond, but the mental rehabilitation of coping with the memory of who she was “before” and how the life she knew and the ways she always knew to live and go about her life have all been altered in the most significant ways.  The most minute changes in how she must adapt will be even harder than the things she can’t do whatsoever.  That sensation of working and straining through the motions and falling short or absolutely failing along the way is more detrimental than not being able to try at all.

Yes, this will be the hardest work she’ll ever do.  As the article said “an early start on rehab is key to limiting permanent damage.”   Yes, you have to push the brain in order to rewire itself, but it sounds so much easier than it actually is.  This is an entire new body she will have to live in, remembering each second the way she used to be and how she used to do everything.  Rewiring the brain may be all that needs to happen, but in order for that to fully happen she will need to overcome every physical and emotional battle that comes with living with an acquired disability.  It is the worst hell you can put upon anybody…and to give it to someone who will fully remember every way her life and motions were before the brain damage is an unthinkable punishment.

It takes years to overcome, but once you finally get there after all the recessions and times you nearly failed, you become so much stronger than you ever imagined you could be.  Not only have you overcome completely learning a new way of living and interacting, but you can do everything you were able to do before in an adapted way that you not only taught yourself, but relentlessly fought to learn and perfect.  It’s the worst misery, but the eventual payoff—years, even a decade in the making— is the most incredible reward you can give YOURSELF.

She’s alert and smoothly improving for someone who was just shot two weeks ago, but she is nowhere near normal yet, and it’s very sad that it happened.  Goals are important, but attainable goals are crucial.  Living independently or even returning to Congress will be a LONG term goal.  Walking three steps without gripping the railing, not stuttering for 2 whole sentences, picking something up with only her right hand, these are goals that may take her a year yet depending on how severe this trauma is.  We do not know where she’s at though and there’s no way doctors will tell you everything going on.

There’s a lot going on.  Rehab is ultimately about teaching yourself to get your life back, but there is so much that others must help Rep. Giffords learn how to live with and adapt.  Her new normal, I’m sure, is devastating.  Too many have been in that situation, and both Rep. Giffords and I share that the left side of our brain was injured.  That little bit I can relate to, but the effects of brain damage are an infinite spectrum.  The only constant is how hard and consistently you fight.  I hope she fights hard.  Her family can, but it is HER choice.  It’s hard, and even though there will be tears in crying the ultimate happiness comes years later when the perseverance chips away at the damage inflicted.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has a long road ahead of her, one that I am all too familiar.  Hers and my brain traumas are so similar.  I know what a tough road she will have ahead and all I can do is pray that she can overcome this daunting battle ahead of her.

I didn’t really start following football until I went to college, and even then the only reason was because the Ravens have their public training camp at my school.  McDaniel isn’t a large school by any means, and I don’t know if the school ever removed the Ravenstown banner along the side of the gym at any point during the 4 years I went there.

I watched the Ravens lose to the Steelers, but I also knew that there was a strong likelihood that they would lose.  It’s amazing to me to see how diehard football fans get over a 60-minute GAME.  I mean, I’m not missing anything, am I?  It is just a game?  Nothing life changing happens to you just because your team won.  Yes, I recognize the positive influx that can occur for places like New Orleans when the Saints won last year, but sports in general are not as life or death as everyone makes them out to be.  Your team loses and you are fine by the time you go to bed.

Yes, I recognize the importance behind entertainment value, but its necessity for leisure gets obscured with an apparent life necessity.  I enjoy lounging around and watching a movie and the occasional sports game (still working my way back to baseball, but we’ll see how that goes.)  My fear is that the apparent importance of sports and other entertainment avenues takes away necessary attention from professions and actions needed t sustain life and continue on—meaningful, impactful situations.

It’s all in the perspective we view life, and we must remember that my perspective has been aided by the situations I have lived through.  That’s fact and there is no reason denying it because it is an asset; it’s giving me a new way to see the world.  That has developed my desire to share a broadened perspective to others, not to change their current way of life but to extend it holistically.  Everything fits into a proper balance.  Making sure we find that balance is how we prosper.  Securing ourselves is the utmost importance, remembering to set aside time to relax as well instead of it being the other way around.  Perhaps that is why we seem to be scrambling, but that is a whole other post entirely.

I guess we’ll see what happens this weekend, but I have a feeling New York, Pittsburgh, Green Bay and Chicago will have more to fear from the frigid weather than whatever outcomes happen on Sunday.  That being said, Go Chicago!  My closest friend Anuja lives there after all =)  And like I said, fun and relaxation is just fine in moderation. The level of moderation is what needs to be determined.  That is an individual realization.  All I want to do is help people feel better and more secure in their lives.