sofa saga

It was a balmy night...Scott, Vicki and Mike were discussing a newly gained piece of furniture.... had a rather lively discussion...

Scott- "oh Vicki, you and Mike have acquired a new davenport i see"

Mike- "quite new in fact, why only today we've brought it home...great Scott! Scott we should place it inside our home!!"

Vicki- "I'll say! That's a rather splendid idea there Mike"

Scott- "perhaps we should imbibe in a wee dram of spirits before we begin?"

Vicki- " an altogether lovely idea, splendid! oh Scott, will you be so kind as to fire my fag, and yours?"

Scott- "absolutely Vicki! what a rollicking good time this is!"

Mike, Vicki and Scott all donned lift belts, planned all their moves well in advance, team lifted, and of course lifted with their knees in a carefully choreographed event. After the move was successfully completed they all rested upon the divan whilst discussing art and music theory. They laughed merrily all night and as the morning drew nigh....

What really happened...

It was another sweltering night in Florida, the Palmetto bugs were dive bombing Mike, Vicki and Scott...they had just brought home a second couch because Mike's parents gave it to them and were pretty well trashed...Vicki and Scott were smoking furiously. They were all singing somewhat discordantly and wondering if they had enough beer and smokes........

Vicki- hey Scott you want our old couch

Scott- sure man

Mike- alright lets get this one out and that one in

Vicki- wait what are we gonna do? which one first?

Scott- lets get this one out then that one in

Vicki- sounds good but lets smoke first...

Scott- yeah....hey can I have a cigarette?

Mike-you guys want another beer?

this goes on for a while....

we get the first couch out ok and the orange mushroom chairs...they sort of matched the brown mushroom sofa in a weird sort of psychedelic, kind of way...this furniture was last popular circa 1970.

Moving the new sofa in, we had to go over the deck railing because of the way the stairs angled. Scott was in the bed of the truck, I was on the ground (I have muscles!! really I do, or did) Mike was on the deck...we pass the sofa over, the bed wall of the truck, I steady it as it comes out then hand off to Mike, Scott passes the end out to me, I'm holding the end while Scott gets out of the truck bed ...Mike is walking backward to get inside, he trips over the door jamb...sofa tips and pivots on the deck railing fulcrum...all the weight transfers rapidly to me...I'm not that strong..sofa lands on my head...horrible crunch, nauseating pain, numbness, cussing, apology, really nauseated...guys check me for concussion, but none of us considers that my neck may have just been really screwed up.

I remember the next morning is pretty bad, but I just figured it was too much fun the night before, life goes on for the next 16 or so years....

and today we have 2-7 all in various states of herniation, at least one of them went in 2 different directions pressing on my spinal cord and peripheral nerves, 3 old compression fractures, bone spurs in both central canal and on foramin again pressing on nerves and spinal cord, ligament hypertrophy, retrolisthesis... neurologically I was showing hoffmann's sign, babinski reflex, hyper-reflexia, impaired tandem walk in other words..... ...a mess all rapidly leading to paralysis!

I've been fused, de-spurred and have central cord syndrome until it decides to go away or stay with me or whatever it decides to do...not so bad considering I waited so long. The cord syndrome is what's making life so much fun right now!! The zombie-like gait, shaking hands (looks like a coffee overdose), inability to type words the first time out...because my fingers don't respond well and end up confused...everything is slow. It's really all good considering I was staring down total paralysis...partial paralysis really isn't such a bad thing, just more inconvenient and comical...until the blues hit ....then I have only to remember how much fun we had that night

Sadly the couch is no longer with us, but it was for many years, I held my son on it, slept on it and loved dear couchy!