Craig: The last week!

Tuesday

Well it's finally here. Our final week. We have a ton of pics to share so it's going to seem super long, but we have so much to show you & we couldn't leave anything out. Tiff is a little overwhelmed right now with getting ready to go home, so I get to write this week...sorry.

I started the week off on a good note. Finally I got my brace off. Now my team can really push me with no restrictions from the doc.

I'm not going to lie. This is how I really felt.

 

Wednesday

Joe and Mackenzie didn't waste anytime the next day, it was on. Floor transfers to chair, over and over again. We couldn't do these before due to the restriction of the brace and now that it's off, they are really pushing me.

Thursday

Very next day Joe tells Chris to have me practice tipping back up in my chair for when I flip over. After practicing all this I can assure you I won't be going anywhere by myself. It's very hard work and they made me do it twice because Tiff missed the first one with the camera. >:/

I did it!!!

So today the young women and young men's group came over to our house and did a service project of deep cleaning our house and picking up our yard for us. We are so grateful we live in this wonderful community and I have had the great privilege of working with these amazing boys.

 

Thursday

Well, today was extremely tough, but it all paid off with an outing to the local Can-Am dealership. We had been planning it for quite some time. Joe and Mackenzie wanted to see if I could transfer into a Maverick. I was very excited but nervous at the same time.

The transfer went way better than I could have imagined! Mackenzie and I just took it easy, & I showed Joe all the horsepower of the maverick.

This is one of my favorite pictures. My team for the last 8 weeks. I was truly blessed, they believed in me and pushed me from day 1. They never let me get down. Joe and Mackenzie are unbelievable and unselfish people. I am so grateful for them. As far as my wife goes, I don't even know where to start. She has been my rock through this whole thing, always keeping me positive and moving forward all the while I know she would much rather be home with the kids. But she knows how much I need her and I am so blessed to have her in my life. I love you babe!

So we couldn't find a DS 450 and this renegade was the closest thing to my race quad and I wanted to see if I could transfer onto a quad and what it felt like, Joe said lets go for it. A little harder, but definitely doable. I will have Gilbert working on a shift lever for me! ;)

After a great lunch with the team I headed back to the gym for my last class. Just in time for a wild game of wall ball. It got a little crazy and even though we lost, we had a great time and we only knocked 2 people out of there chairs. Of course no one saw anything... Too much paper work for our great instructors! Lol

Front view...

Rear view.

Well I thought this was all for me leaving but come to find out it was the ground breaking for Craig's new addition. Haha! This is truly exciting after being here because this place does so much good and everyone that works here is amazing! Although I obviously did not plan on being here, I am thankful for the journey and I hope someday it will all make sense why my Heavenly Father chose this path for me.

 

Friday

My personal "contractors" and best friends from Moapa took the weekend off to come hang out and go watch motocross at Thunder Valley. What a great way to end my stay in Denver. I still had a few classes to first get through today.

 

Yes, those are cones on my lap. I'm not just happy to be at chair class. Lol! So word spread pretty fast that this was my last day so everyone pulled out the stops. Here I am practicing picking up cones with one hand all while keeping a wheelie. Very tough...

So I have been biking after class a few times with Claire and we have a pretty cool little loop that has a little hill right at the end that we race up. She has never been beat by a in patient at Craig before. Well, I have beat her twice (sorry Claire) she wasn't very happy. So she tells me we should get Joe out on Friday and have a "friendly" race. So she schedules it and and we get some trash talking going all day, so 1:00 it's on. Well we come down to the last hill and Joe and me are neck and neck and almost at the end and Joes chain starts slipping and he is yelling " shoot, shoot, shoot" and I'm laughing so hard at Joe's choice of words. Joe is losing because his chain keeps slipping, and all he is yelling is "shoot!" What a great example he is to me. My mom and wife know I need to learn from that. :) We had a great time! A huge thanks to Claire for not giving up on me and getting me outside to try different things.

At the end of the day we had my departure conference, which is when my whole team, including my doctor, nurse P.T., O.T, and my shrink (that's a whole other story ;) ) get together and we go over everything past and present. It got a little emotional at the end, big shocker, but I'm so grateful for these people, so I made Tiff do all the talking, but that didn't go much better. We are both cry babies. Haha. I know deep down inside they were all crying and sad to see us go. At least that's what I keep telling myself...

Saturday

It's time to go watch some MX!

Are you freaking kidding me! How am I suppose to get in this?!

 

Look at Bundy's big guns!! It wasn't pretty but I made it in. I hope nobody was watching because they probably thought that a poor little handicap boy was getting abducted cuz they just picked me up and threw me in there! Lol!

Made it! I know I just made Joe proud. :')

 

Thunder Valley...

We had a great day at the races. It was a little overwhelming, but thanks to my wife and awesome friends, they definitely made it a lot less stressful. And if Joe didn't hook me up with the Free Wheel that Craig had, I would not have been able to go. The terrain there was rocky and uphill. Tiff got her workout in. Haha.

 

Sunday

Well, today was the longest day EVER! Before the crew took off, Tiff made the boys get me ready for the day since they wore me out yesterday.

I really hope Mackenzie doesn't see this. Haha ;)

After they dressed me, they they headed home with all the stuff we can live without for the next 24hrs. It was loaded to the brim! Who would have thought we could accumulate so much crap in 8 weeks?!

Then we just sat around...bored...thinking we should have flew out today. We did have a smokin BBQ with our friends, Dan and Ginger, who we met here at Craig. We've made many great friends who are going through similar things as me. It's been nice having someone who knows how I feel and what I'm going through, to talk to.

 

Monday

Heading home today! I never thought this day would come! We loaded up in a handicap van. I was SO glad I didn't have to do any transfers. I am still worn out from the weekend. But I had to sit way in the back and it kind of made me sick back there:(

Kacee and Ian came in to get us at the airport. Jaxyn came with them. I was so happy to see him and Tiff started crying. She didn't think she'd see any of our kids till we got home. What a great surprise.

Then this is just some of the things we saw when we got into Moapa...

Like I said...so blessed:')

 

So this is how awesome our friends and family are. All the home mods done in less than 10 days!!!

 

It's better than before! Thank you all so much!

Oh, and they put an automatic garage door on my shop! I have been wanting one for over 10 years! I guess this is what it takes....

 

Well, my journey at Craig has come to a end. There are so many people that I would like to thank, but I don't even know where to start because I could go on for days, so a huge THANK YOU to everyone will have to do. We will continue on with this blog as exciting things happen. Next weekend my boss and his awesome wife have put together a benefit ride day at Cahuilla raceway in Southern California, for me. Hopefully I will feel good enough to make the trek down there so I can personally see and thank all those who have participted and helped with this fundraiser too.

As this new chapter begins I really don't know which direction it will take me, but I pray it will all come together and make sense. Thanks for taking this journey with me.

Josh

Quote of the week:

I had wrote this quote in my work out room on a pit board, before all this had happened. It has a totally different meaning to me now....

 

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Craig Week 7

Wednesday

Starting this week off on Wednesday because I didn't get back from Nevada till Tuesday night. So, today Josh got to try out a basketball chair. Him and Joe tried them out and he went over the different rules of wheelchair basketball. Then Joe had me try it out. Me n Josh played a friendly game of pig...which I won!!! :P. The thing with wheelchair bb, you have no push off your legs, it's all upper body. Well, take away your core, and it is even more tough! He'll get it.

 

Then, Josh had his very first driving lesson! SCARY! Haha! He did great! He got the hang of it really fast and felt really good to be behind the wheel again. He will have a couple of more lessons, then he has to pass a Nevada DMV driving test. Then he will be a driving maniac!

There he goes!!! I'm so proud. :')

 

Thursday

Today Johnny flew out here with Ron Lawson, a camera man with Dirt Wheels Magazine. They followed Josh around for a bit, took some footage, did some interviews then took back off again! It is for the up coming ride day at Cahuilla. It'll be awesome to see it all come together:)

Friday

Today was a great day! Josh learned how to play wall-ball in wheelchair class. That was fun to watch these guys play together and see the quiet ones be very competitive. Lol! Josh's team won ;)

 

Joe had Josh try going up stairs without his chair. He had him wear this padded seat and he made it all the way to the top of these 8 stairs! It was way harder than it looked! Joe told Josh that he was only the 2nd person that he knew of, that could do that while at Craig as an inpatient. So that made Josh want to keep going up, just so that he could be the first one who made it all the way to the helipad!!! All about making records here! Lol!

In fit class, they switched it up a bit and tried archery. They all did well and had fun doing it!

 

Josh met Matt Updike , who is a Olympic paracycling champion, and is known as the Lance Armstrong of "hand" cycling...without the doping part. Haha. He travels all over the world to compete. Matt is helping Josh order and get fitted for his own hand cycle. Watch out Matt! Here comes your competition! ;)

 

So today was the day that Codey and Nathan started the demolition on our house! They only have 10 days to get it all done before we come home. I'm nervous, but excited! I know they will do an amazing job! Lots of people are helping them out and I am so grateful for that!

Our bedroom...they are hilarious!

Our shower...

Or what's left of it....

Red, Nathan, and Codey putting the shower back together! They are cruising!

 

The toilet...

which is hanging out in our bedroom...

Codey showing us where the new toilet will be. Lol! He's crazy!

Our awesome friends Charlie, his son David, and Codey working on the toilet room:). It's fun to see updates of our house coming together. It's going to be better than before!

 

Saturday & Sunday

Wendy and Brandon came up this weekend again to hang out with us. So we made Brandon come help us and deal with dealership people since he loves doing that! We are just looking right now and trying out what kind of vehicle would work the best for our family now. I'm afraid if we go by ourselves, I will be driving it home instead of flying. Haha. It was fun and so glad I didn't have to do it by myself. Now we have an idea of what we want. Then we ate some lunch and went to the movie Star Trek. It was very good. Then we just hung out the rest of the day. That was Josh's first time out and about for that long of a time. He did great! No excuses now;).

Sunday, we went to church then the Butlers headed home. :(. Josh and I just relaxed the rest of the day and enjoyed the beautiful weather while it lasts.

Eating dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Mmmmm!

Going to church. We did not plan our matching dresses. Haha!

 

Monday

Only one more week till we go home! Ahhhhh! We are so excited, but scared at the same time. So much to do in so little time! Oh we'll, ready or not... At least our house is coming together!

So since this is Josh's last week, they are redoing all the tests and X-rays they did when he first got here. So hopefully everything looks good on his back so he can be brace free!!! Not much movement on his ASIA test though:/. But that doesn't mean anything. We will see in 6 months when we come back for the re-eval.

Joe and Mackenzie doing the full body ASIA test.

In wheelchair class, Josh had to go down a couple of flights of stairs by using only the hand rails. Now, I know he has Chris behind him, but its only for precautionary measure. As they say, it's less paper work if someone gets hurt. Hah! So anyways, Josh is doing this all by himself! Crazy!

Then he had to go across these bumps, again with no help, while keeping a wheelie. They said not many people can do this before they go home :) he conquered it! :)

It's like last chance workout today in fit class. Since they do something different every day for a week, and this is his last week, he is pushing himself extra harder to make this workout his best! We are hoping he will be able to keep up on all these workouts when we get home, at a close-by rehab.

He was just a little animated. Haha!

 

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