First Contact - Post #1

Well what do you know? After two weeks of writing and posting my first four articles to get the Long Journey Back up and running, I find myself penalized. Sent back to the start, to begin all over again. Rather apropos considering the last eighteen months. I did not pass GO. I did not collect the proverbial 200 bucks. I did collect a bunch of new life lessons. Which apparently is all I do these days. Two steps forward, one step back. Emphasizing yet again, just how long a journey this has been, is, and will be. Jeezzzussss!

But as was pointed out by my lady this morning when she woke to find me, once again wallowing in the blackness of despair from inadvertently deleting everything I had accomplished over the past two weeks, this whole exercise is really about the "doing" and not about any fixed goal. It is in fact, simply more of what has engulfed my entire existence over the past eighteen months as I have struggled to gain back some semblance of the life I once lived.

The Blog offers a rather unique medium to record my thoughts on everything I have experienced on the journey back. My team of specialists, in a very real way led by my Angel, my love, my wife, and my friend, have all agreed the writing itself, regardless of topic, will be invaluable in recovering cognitive abilities and mental capacity and ultimately assist in hastening what is expected to be a full recovery. But as important as that is for a reason to write, there are others of equal value that are also highly motivating for me.

My Long Journey Back began 4:05PM EST, Saturday June 26th 2010. Over a year and a half ago as a result of a catastrophic accident that has irrevocably changed my life forever. At the moment it is unclear if the change is for better or for worse. But one irrefutable conclusion shines oh so bright. I am without a doubt, the luckiest man alive.
And the story is truly remarkable.

Now I am not a writer. But I realized very quickly I was not in any position to keep family and friends informed of my condition or my progress by any means other than email. There were so many people expressing their concern, and I was just too busy dealing with the shit at hand. So being a complete Techno Moron (TM), I communicated the only way I could, by creating a very large emailing list. This allowed me to broadcast the updates to everyone all at once. I get that email is not the most practical method of mass communication but I knew nothing about Blogs and understood even less. I have to credit one guy. Always a great inspiration to me, my Techno Wizard (TW), my big brother, for encouraging me in the right direction.

I am blessed with sharing my experience with my wife and two fantastic kids. Always the fore front of my thoughts. By writing all this stuff down we will have a record of the entire ordeal and someday we will all look back and have a great laugh together when reminiscing about just how far we have come.

I began this blog on a iPad two weeks ago trying to familiarize myself with the mechanics in preparation for taking the process on the road in just under two months. I wrote and posted the beginning of the journey in four segments over the last two weeks. Not very familiar with the hard and software involved, I scripted directly into the blog. Only to arrive at the conclusion when reviewing my posts last night, the iPad doesn't save a post after reviewing in edit mode. Or at least if it does, I haven't figured out how.
I erased everything I had written. Twice. Poof! Gone. For good.

I am now starting over again with the iPad app Pages. Now I'll write. Save. Copy and Paste. Hopefully this will prove to be a lot less frustrating.

Some of what I will post has already occurred. I have written a lot over the journey to this point. But a lot is yet to occur. I decided to start the blog at the beginning. Which oddly enough, began with a series of events fifteen years ago. Those events are not yet recorded and that is where my journal will begin. You'll see all that first, followed by the events leading up to the catastrophe; the 'Big Splat' itself, the recovery and ultimate rehab. All conducted in partnership with the journey my wife embarked on as she received her news that forever changed her life as well.

In spite of the set backs, I hope I now have this right and we push on. Same as we have done over here for a while now. The big difference in everything for us is, we now share with the world. Kind of scary. But for all the right reasons we are going to do this. We hope you enjoy some of it along the road of our Long Journey Back.