Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Pawel is not well

how was that party?..

edit
any red shot w/ the nurses?..
 
In the last few days my health improved a lot.

I am able to walk normally for up to 1 hour at a time.

It will still take some time to get back where I was before the injury (like being able to swim 200m butterfly), but the speed of recovery is now very encouraging.

Again, thanks guys for all of your support! It means a lot.
 
Pawel, you are likely recovering quickly because you do swim a 200m butterfly. Very happy to hear you're mending well.
 
Hi Pawel,

Reading you story reminds me a bit of surgery i had about 3 years ago: I had some over-reactive nerves in my left knee and I thought for a long time that it was from an old ACL knee injury.

Boy was I wrong! At the urging of my wife ( a nurse) they scanned me from head to toe (MRI). Eventually they found a growth inside my spinal cord in my mid back. (technically it was a tumor, but ended up being completely benign.) However, it had almost completely crushed my spinal cord and I was told that there was a 10-25% chance of becoming a paraplegic just from surgery and that the best thing to do was to wait until symptoms got worse.

Three months later I started my own business, and shortly after, the symptoms got worse: I started getting roving numbness everywhere in my lower body. I had to either have the surgery and face the odds, or face certain paralisis from the waist down if I did not have the surgery.

Luckily I found a great neurosurgeon. And after a 5 hour surgery session, I awoke with my whole left side from the waist down completely numb. My entire left leg felt like a stump and I could not move it.

Over the next few weeks I slowly started to get feeling back- first in my toes... then it rose up my leg. I was relegated to a walker and, for two months, my wife had to shower me and I crawled up and down our stairs at home to get to bed.

I had to keep working... and ended up directing shoots from my walker and even shooting with crews from behind my walker like a fragile old man.

Eventually, after about 10 weeks of intense physical therapy, I was walking without the walker. The first time my neurosurgeon saw me without the walker he looked like he was a ghost! I don't think he expected such a good recovery. Things steadily improved over the next two years.

Anyway, it's three years later and I'm walking, running and able to do about 90% of the things i was able to do before the surgery.

I guess I wanted to share this story with you because I too had some pretty dark times... and they happened at the worst possible moment. Despite that, I saw little miracles every day: even showering myself was a big jump.

Despite the troubles, I'll never forget what a friend told me when i first found out about the tumor. He said that others may look at this as a terrible situation, but he proposed that it would eventually be a blessing: that the experience would be a constant reminder to me of how precious every friend, family member and moment truly is.

He was right: now I find even more beauty in every thing around me... Every smile from my 3 year old son, every kiss from my wife: and every frame of beautiful things I capture on film, in words and on my RED :)
 
I just caught up with this thread.
Followed the story from the very beginning.

Felt the pain. And the joy.

Just to say "Hi". I'm with you, Pawel.
 
Pawel, nice to hear and see you posting well again. Up and walking... up and shooting? I hope your economic situation has stabilized, too. Take care!

(Corrado, moving post - perfect English - in fragments!)

Through this thread, I see a glimse of a better world. (With you healthy, Pawel!)
 
Pawel its really great to hear about your progress.
 
Ckarcher, thanks for sharing your story - very inspiring.

I have been in the water today. I can swim and I can swim almost as well as before the injury, although I didn't push my luck with butterfly just as yet. The pain and discomfort are completely gone in the water. Doc said I can and should swim now. He didn't say how much, so I did just over 1000m for the first day because it felt good. This was very encouraging experience. Sitting is still iffy, though. And, of course, I can't bend or lift anything heavy. But, that's expected just 2 weeks after the surgery.

Doc says another month and I may be able to get back to office work slowly (and earn some money for a change) and in 3-4 months I should be able to lift weights, scuba dive and film again. I can't wait. There is so much I'd like to film...:gun:
 
The swimming sounds great. I know being supported in the water is good.

Graeme
 
Pawel Achtel said:
Ckarcher, thanks for sharing your story - very inspiring.

I have been in the water today. I can swim and I can swim almost as well as before the injury, although I didn't push my luck with butterfly just as yet. The pain and discomfort are completely gone in the water. Doc said I can and should swim now. He didn't say how much, so I did just over 1000m for the first day because it felt good. This was very encouraging experience. Sitting is still iffy, though. And, of course, I can't bend or lift anything heavy. But, that's expected just 2 weeks after the surgery.

Doc says another month and I may be able to get back to office work slowly (and earn some money for a change) and in 3-4 months I should be able to lift weights, scuba dive and film again. I can't wait. There is so much I'd like to film...:gun:
Click to expand...

Pawel - swimming is the best rehabilitation exercise there is. After I broke to pieces 4 of my ribs in a pro-skiing accident (hug the wrong tree at almost 80kmph after hitting ice patch that was hidden by fresh snow), doctors told me if I work hard I will be "normal" again, but that I need to forget any professional sport. Swimming was my main rehabilitation and I ended up swimming religiously 3km every day. Within a year I had a second best time in my country for 400m breast-stroke... :)

It's great to hear You are doing better...

Peter
 
Thanks guys!

Well, today the swim was 2k. Funny, I still can't sit for longer than 30 minutes. But, I am not too worried about that anymore. As long as I can swim, that's the main thing :pirate:
 
I know what you mean about not being able to sit still. With me it's very chair dependent. Some better than others, and sometimes, it's not the chair, but me. Good luck finding really good chairs for your computer work.

I also raised up my monitors on their desk a few inches to ensure that the top of the monitor was eye height. That helped a lot.

Graeme
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top