Just a smile away from happiness

Learn to walk

11 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment

by jemelikova in Stories from the world and me

The previous story was to be continued, so here we go.

I had two – one less and another more successful - operations. They fixed my  myspine and reemplaced one vertebra. Now I am full of titan, so my stock price has rosen .

After spending 10 days in hospital in Slovakia now it is almost another three weeks in hospital here in Czech Republic. Yes, they transported me here in a helicopter, but after  being in Afghanistan that was not even the cool part…although it is true that the landscape was much more beautiful here.

There is nothing nice about hospital life. Because hospitals are for sick people. They smell funny and people are usually not happy.  So actually having to be in a hospital is the best motivation for getting better…because that means you can get out of here.

I was lucky to be put in quite a nice rehabilitation, the walls are colourful, there are balls of different sizes and colours everywhere and the staff is nice. That is however not reducing my will to leave this place. but for that I had to get out of my bed. Because of my spine healing I will not be able to sit for at least next month or two. So there are only choices to be in bed or up on my feet. I thought it would be easier than it was. First couple of days here it was tough. Anytime I tried to get up my head just blacked out. Because I spent so much time lying down my brain just shut down from lack of brain whenever I stood up. It took two days of trying but finally I was on my feet and standing for more than a minute. It was time for my first steps.

There is a long corridor on this floor connecting all the rooms. This was my first road to travel. Step by step I was discovering world behind walls of our room. And there were people I didn’t know and there was so much to see yes, one gets crazy when locked to a bed for so long.

From then I am able to walk more and more every day. It is still a long way to the marathon… but it will happen. My legs are still shaky and it seems like if all my muscles decided to just disappear. So it takes so much work to put everything back in place.

But I am so excited to progress. It is such a huge change. From traveling the world and being such an independent person I became so dependent and limited. But it opened another serie of challenges for me. Challenges I never thought I would have to face. Those moments, couple tens of minutes I can spend walking per day are the light of my days now. Escaping my bed is worth all the pain.

Sometimes world tells you to slow down. In my case it shouted it on me. So here I am. Hey!