Learning to walk

While watching Avatar a friend said, ‘after living in the Avatar world, how could you walk in the normal world’.  I thought about it and realized I am case in point that you can walk again after living in another world. 

When I met my husband Kevin 5-1/2 years ago, he was fit, active, full of life, going to school for his BA in Psychology.  Our dates consisted of trips to Chicago to just walk around downtown and to go through the museums, bars to hear bands, ball room dance lessons, movies, diners out, ren faires.  We both joined the gym and Kevin was my trainer, my motivator telling me “NEVER SAY CAN’T…DON’T GIVE IN…DON’T GIVE UP”   We got married and we were set, both working, Kevin going to school for his MBA.

Things got sidelined when Kevin had a shoulder injury that required two surgeries and physical therapy.  It was a worker’s comp claim.  And his employer made him pay for making the claim and let him go.  We were fine.  We still had our entire lives ahead of us.  We got through it.  Kevin got another job.  We decided to have a baby.  Things couldn’t be better for us.  Happy, healthy with a baby on the way.  Then the economic downturn comes and Kevin loses his job.

Lincoln Wendell Shear was born on 2/6/08. Our baby made our lives that more happy regardless of the loss of income.  We pushed through.  .  Beautiful baby boy, bringing more joy and love into our lives.  Due to the cost of daycare, Kevin decided to pursue a degree in guitar.  Taking on line courses.  We hoped this would turn into an at home business where he would become a guitar instructor doing lessons.  He could care for Lincoln during the day and do lessons after I got off work.  It was going great.  He had over 20 students.

Then in September of 2009 it hit, his RSD.  Our lives were changed forever.  Kevin was originally diagnosed with RSD in 2001 while he was in the Marine Corp.  Service related injury from combat training.  He was treated at that time with sympathetic nerve blocks and was told he was “cured”.  Little did we know he was in remission.  Actually, I didn’t know about the RSD at all.  To Kevin, he didn’t even think of it, because he thought he was “cured”.  I was clueless to what RSD was and Kevin didn’t have a clue of what hell he would be going through.  The hell began.  The pain and suffering that Kevin still endures daily.  His mom was our savior, stepping in to care for Lincoln and Kevin so I could still work.

Because Kevin’s injury is service related his treatment has to be out of a VA hospital.  We started out at North Chicago because we live in the Chicago area and that is the closest one to us.  That was a complete nightmare for us.  The total mistreatment of Kevin.  The panic that would take over us every time we drove into that parking lot.  Kevin’s depression.  It was pure hell.  Lucky or unlucky for us (however you want to look at it), the North Chicago VA mishandled Kevin’s case and through our local congressman we were able to get Kevin released from medical treatment at North Chicago and transferred to the Milwaukee WI VA.  Come to find out later, that this is rarely allowed.  So that is where the luck comes in.  The Milwaukee WI VA system is like night and day to North Chicago .  The medical treatment is amazing there.  Kevin actually has a team of doctors working together.  Though we rejoice in the fact we have this great team of doctors, it still doesn’t help Kevin with his pain and suffering from his RSD.

Kevin can no longer drive, no longer dance, no longer take vacations, or long drives, no longer walk, no longer play with his son.  Has a 15 minute window before intense pain sets in to sit with us at the dinner table.  Has limited play time on his guitar before pain sets in.  He had to give up all his guitar students.  And in 2 months we will be giving up our home as well because Social Security and the VA have both denied Kevin’s disability claim twice.  So you could say we lived an Avatar world before Kevin’s RSD kicked in and now we are learning to “walk” again.  It can be done, because like Kevin used to say at the gym “NEVER SAY CAN’T…DON’T GIVE IN…DON’T GIVE UP”. 

Our relationship is stronger than ever.  When you have everything else stripped away and it is just the two of you, you realize the love and commitment and support that there is beneath all of that stuff.