Good News, Bad News

Alright, so I just had an insane twenty four hours, and I just couldn't wait to tell everyone about it. Instead of individually and briefly explaining the events of the last day, I figured I'd just write a detailed journal entry that basically tells the whole story.

So to start, yesterday morning, I went on a trip to a place a few towns over (first time without my parents, lame, I know) that basically took an hour by bus to get to. The place, in a nutshell, is a physical therapy progress analysis resort-like rehab thing? It's complicated. They take you in and make you do a bunch of things you usually do at PT, and then they do some extra tests that give you detailed results of how you're doing in your program and which stage of your disability (for those who have progressive like I do) you're at. Then, they send you over to this spa thing and they do shit to make you as comfortable as possible, because they work you like hell with the tests, and you get to relax and such until dinner where you socialize with other patients, and then you go up to your room and fuck around until morning. I had never even really heard of this place until my therapist had told me about it. It's really low-key, and it's in the middle of nowhere.

You'd think they'd have an accessible bus, no? Well, of course, my first obstacle was the stairs leading into the bus, which are (if you've ever been on a bus) friggen tall as fuck. Foot high stairs are quite difficult for a dude like me, so people were getting really annoyed that I was holding up the bus. But, once I had finally got on (in a shitty mood as you would imagine) I found a nice window seat and fell asleep.

The place itself was really nice. A lot of waterfalls and nature and shit that basically gets you to relax. I really wish I could've taken pictures, but I had stupidly left my phone home, and my camera was actually dropped in water last spring. (Fail.)

So, my morning was being constantly drilled, run on this treadmill, do x amount of situps/pushups, lift some weights, and some other weird shit I had never even heard of, like a thing of stairs that they helped you climb up and down to see if you have trouble with it or not. It was pretty much like going to a gym, but they helped you when you had trouble and monitored/marked down everything you did.

At about noon, they take you into this conference room with some doctor guy and you have a nice little chat with him until he stops the small talk and gets all big word-ish with his fancy medical talk. Then, he breaks it down and explains it.

So that's when I met probably the strangest dude I've ever seen. The doctor was tall and had a really long beard, and spoke with a thick European accent. He had a doctor shirt thing on, unbuttoned from the waist down, to reveal tie-dye swim trunk. Nice guy though.

We talked for a while about life, and conversation became comfortable, and I guess that's when he decided he could get all technical with me.

My diagnosis was basically that I'm not just imagining that I'm progressing. My legs are, I believe they said 87% paralyzed, so the other 13% of my leg muscles are what I'm getting around on. While talking, we went for a walk outside, although I didn't know at the time that he was monitoring me to validate the facts. He later told me that it took over seven minutes for me to walk about a block, and that doesn't count the four minutes spent falling and getting back up. Summary: I don't have much time left on my feet.

So after that, I went to the spa and just kind of calmed down. There, I met this girl, Laura. She's training to become a PT. She's seventeen as well, and is an intern at this place for the summer. She stopped by when I was sitting in a massage chair and said that she was sent to check up on me. Turns out, we have a lot in common, and we had a great conversation. The doctor actually came in to get her to go back to work. So, we exchanged numbers and we both carried on with our day.

I thought that I wouldn't see her again, but as fate has it, we bumped into each other today. Well, that's an understatement. This morning, I was passing by the stairs to head to the elevator, and (I'm a spaz, ha.) I tripped and fell down the whole flight. Laura just happened to be passing by downstairs at the time (I thought this kind of shit only happened on crappy soap operas..) and she stayed with me until we could get some help. Turns out, I sprained my back which totally sucks. I'm gonna be off my feet for a while, and I really hope I don't miss the time I have left to enjoy being even somewhat free.

Laura stayed with me all day in the infirmary, and didn't leave my side until my mom came to take me home. Her eyes sparkled when we said goodbye, and she seemed like she actually liked me.

I have this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I think about her. I've never felt this way before in my life. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe love does exist.

When I got home, I had one text. A text from her. It said: "Even though the circumstances under which we met sucked, I had a great time with you and I can't wait to see you again." Then, she, to summarize it, said that she was going to stop by sometime within the next few days and check up on me, and that once my back is better, we should go out to dinner and get to know each other more.

So, even though part of the day completely sucked, I'm sitting here with this dumb smile on my face, and I feel the best I've ever felt in my life.

:)