2 months have passed…

Nobody ever doubted that there’s something going on with my head (literally However, with the news that hit me out of nowhere in the middle of July about my brain situation – I certainly could have done without.

Meanwhile, I returned all of the newly acquired spare parts (gastric probe, tracheal needle, permanent catheter) and slowly begin to see the light again at the end of the tunnel – into the light I did not yet want to ride…

After intensive hospital hopping I have one piece of advice for all Paraplegics: no matter what illness or disease needs to be treated – your paraplegia must first be addressed; it has absolute priority! Instead of selecting an alleged special rehabilitation clinic, rather chose a hospital that you trust and make it your preference. Those specialty places might not be familiar with paraplegia and are easily overwhelmed. If you can’t make it out of bed on your own, maybe due to a decline of your overall condition, you have lost.

Fortunately, for one month now I’m back in the hospital of my trust, where even the guards know me by name. They will put me back on my wheels!

Here are a few impressions from my current “training camp”… physio-, ergo-, speech therapy, driving training, mud baths, etc. …

Translator BW

Since one year, I am going to the Frankfurt University twice a week, and I don’t mean the University medical center this time, which you may think in my age…

It’s quite impressive when I announce sitting in my wheelchair that I don’t have time because I have to go the sports university

… no, I am not training explicitly for the next Paralympics…

I am there in a project group for

Stochastic Resonance Therapy (STR-Therapy)

This therapy, co-developed by the institute of sports sciences in Frankfurt/Main, transmits low-frequency (6-12 Hz), randomized vibrations by two plates independent of each other. *

The effect is quite complex.
In simple words, the feet are fixed onto 2 aluminium plates, or as pedestrian you stand on the plates.

These plates move/rattle heavily and simulate walking to the body. The nerves are stimulated and suppose walking to the brain.

The success especially for people with walking disabilities is remarkable.

More information on Stochastic Resonance Therapy and experience reports and equipment (in German): click here and click here.

Except for the STR equipment there is normal workout equipment as well. A sports therapist is always available for us.

The training with other handicapped people is fun, and of course there is an intense exchange of experiences.

I wouldn’t have thought that I ever would visit a gym voluntarily. There are still places available in the project.

In the video you can see Jens Maspfuhl, reigning 6-times German champion in Wheelchair Golf. He is chairman of the private incorporated society “German accident and disaster relief”

DUK-Deutsche Unfall und Katastrophenhilfe e.V.

This society is sponsor of the project and is funding it by donations and sustaining memberships.

The society also supports successfully a vocational school for disabled people of the “Father Ray Foundation” in Thailand, many of them wheelchair users.

Because of the flooding the price for rice has increased dramatically, and therefore the Foundation needs support to feed more than 800 people per day.

Additionally, the fundless highly quadriplegic young Thai woman Nuch is supported.

There are still some donation receipts and sustaining memberships left. Donate quickly before everything is gone…

Every donation is well received in the projects, I am sustaining member myself and have donated several times!!!

Somewhere I can be seen with Jens on one of the cross-fading pictures on the DUK homepage, 16 pictures after the German minister of finance Schäuble

* Source C.Ebert

For questions as usual: rollinator@eigude.de

Translator BL

During my hospital detention due to my shinbone fracture my wheelchair including me has lost almost 10 kg of weight. Maybe due to the food, or did I idle around fasting too much???

Usually I can eat what I want, the wheelchair is getting heavier and heavier,… now suddenly lighter and lighter…

Too bad that my body has not only used up the redundant fat tissue which I basically don’t mind, but also plenty of my painfully worked out muscles.

October had good weather and November was the driest of all times…, but that doesn’t help if you are lying with a splint and outstretched leg, with the overall appearance of a Russian tank, only driving from sleeping room passing kitchen and bathroom to the office and back. In exceptional cases a short break was taken in the dining room.
Now adding some Christmas cookies, and the wheelchair will be more heavy than ever.

To counteract the muscle wasting an individual

Despite-orthosis-indoor-training-program

was developed. On my

leg exercise machine

the foot rests were demounted so that it can be used as arm exercise machine in spite of the leg orthosis on the right.

The familiar

Swing stick

wears everyone down in the long run. ( note the yellow ball).

The daily exercise with the

Thera-band in bed

should according to experience and due to safety reasons not be done without protective glasses.
More exercises with the Thera-band, “Fit in Wheelchair”: Join in!!!

Translator BL

Some wheelchair users proudly claim to have a

“standing wheelchair”

paid by their health insurance. This would be so great, you could be standing again in your favourite pub at the bar to have a drink, and you would be able to get a coffee mug from above out of the cupboard without problems.

All this might be correct, but the question is, did the “standing wheelchair” get a medical device number for this ?

Everybody should be clear that coffee mug transportation from the cupboard and “standing elimination” of draught beer in general don’t belong to primary health care, therefore the public health insurance would cover the costs only in exceptional cases.
Furthermore the insurance would have paid already for an everyday wheelchair for sure with which you can also get drunk. So why a second…

I am outing myself, I have such a chair, and it is medically reasonable!!!
But officially it is not a standing wheelchair, but a

Standing chair or Standing exercise device

I repeat again, why should the insurance pay for two wheelchairs…

Everybody knows it, you were lying in bed with the flu for 3 days, and when getting up you see little stars first because you feel dizzy.
After my accident I have looked at the ceiling in hospital for 9 weeks and claim since then that I knew all shades of white.
During 8 months I was buckled up each day for 1 hour on a tilt table and tilted upwards as on a torture rack to permanently stabilise my circulation without additional medication.
Furthermore the standing chair helps to prevent muscle wasting and pressure sores.

After I was home also my tilt table was gone. My circulation was not happy at all with that. Although we para- and quadriplegics are famous for our low blood pressure… with a blood pressure of 42/35 I could still count the drops of my medicine… this was hard. I got a prescription especially for a standing chair, because my blood pressure refused another standing device comparable to a speaker’s desk.
It is incomprehensible, but when using these “standing desks” I felt close to fainting after seconds.

After testing of another device and longer correspondence with my insurance, roundabout a year, which was very fast, I got a

Standing exercise device

l

(ca. 7000€) approved.

Read my blogpost about a handrail (back at the wall) as transfer aid (see older blogpost), from everyday wheelchair to standing chair.

At this point I would like to personally thank all these blithering idiots because of whom the approval of these upscale medical device at the health insurance is understandably so difficult.
If you absolutely want to “stand” at your pub’s bar, buy your standing wheelchair by yourself!!!

Small tip, even if you are not so educated in using a language. In case of non-approval of a medical device by the health insurance consider correct wording and spelling in your objection. Otherwise the correspondence can drag on for years…

I know a case in which the insurance wanted to place an electrical standing wheelchair in re-use which is 10 km/h fast into the living room of a patient in the 1st floor.
This is somehow unusual, but medically absolutely justifiable.

Translator BL

There are various therapies for muscle relaxation.

Mud packs, acupuncture, massages of all kind, stimulation current therapy, etc. etc. etc…

There is a shockingly expensive machine called Galileo which is basically just a vibrating plate on which you can regulate different frequencies.

On Saturday night we went to the group vibration therapy, similar to Galileo, to the “Festhalle” in Frankfurt (big event hall).

The English therapists are known since 1975 under the name

Iron Maiden

and achieve with their years of experience and permanent frequency changes best possible therapy successes by full body vibration.

Muscle build-up by clapping and CPAP lung exercise by singing along!

By slight shock-values generated by the stage design additionally the circulation is stimulated.
Several thousand patients were treated at the same time.

An additional positive effect is that you can still hear slightly the sound of the ocean days later which causes a holiday feeling.
Incomprehensibly the health insurance does not cover the costs of this since 36 years proven and tested alternative therapy.

Read my older blogpost Football ticket on prescription.

Translator BL

Exercise of all kind is in spite of the paralysis extremely important. My daily morning 1 – 1,5 hours of

wheeler yoga in bed

are showing the first results. Additionally a bit

leg training,

Swimming Pool,

Hand cycle,

Physio therapy (see older blogpost)

and I am ready for the next

Paralympics.

I am not sure about the discipline, any ideas?
I only get tired quickly!

Translator BL

Everybody who knew me before my accident should still remember that I was a quite good dancer.
The thought would have been absurd that I would ever acquire a

dancing pole

for my own four walls,
especially because classic ballet was none of my favourite dancing styles.
Now as passive dancer I have let me built a

stainless steel pole

and fix it to the wall.
However the intended use of this pole is different.
I place myself with my

race wheelchair

next to my

standing device
(this is not a wheelchair)

and transfer over with my dancing pole and slide board and with the help of unnamed volunteers.
Now I’m buckled up, and I am

„standing on my own two feet again“.

Good that I am not on the picture, so at least you can’t see my pot belly.

Translator BL

„Loge der Roten Kapuzenträger“

angehören.
Diese Geheimloge wurde bereits im Mittelalter gegründet.
Die Mitglieder haben damals schon erfolgreich die Schwarze Heilkunst in dunklen Kellerverliesen ausgeübt.
Heute sind die “Therapieräume” hell erleuchtet und wirken freundlich.
Die Geräte erscheinen modern, erfüllen jedoch den gleichen Zweck wie bereits vor 500 Jahren.
Die Therapeuten/innen besitzen heute noch das Geheimwissen, sich gegenseitig Botschaften über den Körper der Patienten zu übermitteln.
Wie wäre es ansonsten möglich, dass bei verschiedenen Physiotherapeuten/innen, aus den unterschiedlichsten Bundesländern sofort, z.B. am Rücken die schmerzhaftesten Stellen nur durch Handauflegen gefunden werden.
Dies ist meiner Erfahrung nach, nur durch peinlichst genaue Markierung möglich, die uns Laien verborgen bleibt.
Die Behauptung, Physiotherapeuten/innen frönen nur ihrer “Sadistischen Ader” ist haltlos.

Sollten bei den „Therapiesitzungen“ tatsächlich einmal Verletzungen auftreten, kommt sofort der:

Schweizer Notfallkoffer

zum Einsatz.

Dessen Inhalt bleibt uns auf ewig ein Räsel.