Skip--My Inspiration

There are many things I have learned while at the clinic.  Just talking to my driver is an education in itself.

Of the many things I learned--therapy can do many things for you--but you have to want it.

Because if you are not willing to fight--if you do not want it--if you give only the minimal effort--or if you phone it in--there is nothing the clinic will change for you.

And I mean it--you can come every day but without the drive to do what needs to be done you are wasting the precious insurance money that allows you to be here.

There are many people I have met here--one such person is Skip.

And he is a shining example of this amazing place.

My driver told my about Skip who I learned was a lawyer.  He had previously told me that he wanted to walk out of here using a cane. We often shared a belief that we will walk out of here together--no cane--at least that is what I believe.

Skip is truly the x-factor here at the clinic.  He works hard in a that makes of proud to know him.  When I first learned about him it was from my driver who stated she did not know his name but information spread like wildfire among the other drivers--that there was a "lawyer" who wanted to make his time at the clinic count.

The lawyer had set up his room at the resident and he kept working through his rehabilitation.  He read briefs, and he spent his days at the clinic and his evenings at the residence practicing his trade.

He was primarily the reason I started this blog.

Skip inspired me.

To this day I remember the first day I went to health club, and I remember the first day Skip went to health club.

We both could barely get into the van.  On my first day I remember groaning and pulling myself up into the van and letting out a long and sustained expletive to which Bruce and Gerald laughed.  What I felt was the long, good hurt--the needed hurt after you have almost let your legs atrophy.  Luckily, they let me have the whole first seat and I wanted to lay down and not move for an hour.

Skip's first foray to health club played out in the same manor.  At the time I remember he too had trouble getting into the van. On his first day I remember speaking to him and telling him, "Welcome to the first day that you are going to start walking, and I think we are going to walk out of here together."

That still is my belief.  

Even after four weeks of insurance mandated absence I still believe we will walk out of here together, and Skip will not need a cane.

After the first day I watched Skip groan his way up and into the van, and we both laughed as he tried to lay on the front seat next to me.  There were several times we had both left the YMCA gym with what both Skip and I and the trainers call the "Baby Bambi Legs."

Recently I missed one of Skip's triumph days.  Secretly Skip planned to bring his bike up to CNS and prove he could ride around the parking lot.  He had been practicing to ride without trainers and prove that he could ride a bike again.

So when I went to the food pantry Skip  was trying to wave to me in the parking lot and like an idiot I missed him.

And then Skip with the help of Megan, Gerald and Bruce for the first time in a year rode around the parking lot with Gerald and Megan running beside him and Bruce filming him.

 

Every time I watch this video I can not help but smile.  Skip is still fighting on. 

And so I am fighting on.  After so many days Skip and I have struggle together.  We struggled through health club, and we struggled getting into into the van together, and now we both climb our way in to the van.

We both sit in the van together with the pride we feel being able to climb up into it even though both our legs shake after a hard workout.

We have proven we both want it in the worst way, and maybe if we both work hard enough we will discharge together.