Thursday, May 15, 2008

Keep the Faith

Not a day goes by without me thinking about how I could have done things differently. If I could have somehow caught this sooner, then I wouldn't have lost the use of my foot. As much as I think about that, I think about how it could have been worse. How I could have lost the use of my entire leg and not been able to walk like I already am!

My physical therapist says I am progressing along pretty well. In fact better then expected. When people see me they can't believe I just got out of the hospital less then six weeks ago. I do feel like I am getting better and stronger everyday but I am not where I want to be. That is the impatient side of me. The side that wants to be whole again right now. As I go through physical therapy I realize how far I still have to go before I can even get back on a bike.

I believe everything happens for a reason. I know this has happened for a reason. I also know that I won't get through this with my strength but will God's strength. I know there are some nay sayers out there that don't understand what it means to have faith or don't understand why these things happen to people. Sometimes they just do. There is no rhyme or reason as to why this happened to me. But know this, I will not let this stop me from carrying on with my life. You see, I also believe in the power of prayer. There are thousands of people across the world that have been praying for me. It really can't get better then that. Miracles happen everyday. Whether you believe they happen or not, they are happening. A few months from now or even a year from now, God may decide you will now feel your foot and I will.

Throughout my life I have also learned that you must be very specific in what you pray for. Before I went in for surgery I asked God to please allow me to come out alive, to be able to go to the bathroom, to be able to walk and to be able to have children. If you think about it, everyone one of those has come true. I am of course, still working on the having children. But I am walking on my own with a cane. How cool is that?! But I probably should have asked to please allow me to have the use of every body part.

This last week has been amazing. We continued to celebrate my birthday with a party on Saturday. Lot's of folks showed up and couldn't believe how well I was doing. I was just so happy to look into the eyes of all my friends and have them look back with a big smile. For so long when I looked at people I could see how sorry they were that I was going through this. I could see how sad everyone was. I could see how my family looked at me when I was screaming in pain. But now when I looked I saw nothing but happiness for me. I could see the surprise in them at how well I was getting around despite my handicap!

When I got home that night, I put everyone's birthday cards where I could look at them whenever I sat in bed. Just a few months ago we didn't know if I was going to make it to my 32nd birthday. That's the power of prayer!

Earlier this week I had some really good days of physical therapy. They were very challenging but you can see the improvement from it. My dad commented on how he couldn't believe there were so many exercises for the same muscles. It is amazing how so many different things can engage a group of muscles. We learned that nerves are not like muscles. You don't want to push them to exhaustion. Nerves are more like a battery, once you run them down you have to wait until they recharge. This gave me a whole new outlook on what I should be doing to maximize "training." With muscles we overload them and push through the fatigue. Instead of doing a whole bunch of exercises at once I have to spread them throughout the day.

I am currently staying at one of my sponsor's home near So Cal (

www.esigrips.com ). Tomorrow we head to Temecula for the first Xterra of the season in the U.S. It will be a little hard for me to sit by the sideline and watch the race instead of being in it. But I know that my body is far from being ready to race again. It will be great to just be able to say Hi to all my Xterra friends and let them know that as well as I am doing, I still need their prayers!

Powered By God,

Jamie

1 comment:

SimplyStu said...

I will continue to send good thoughts and prayers your way! You are amazing...