In the beginning
I remember when I was first finally feeling self-aware in the ICU after my injury I was adamant that I would walk again. I'm not sure if it was delusion or dreaming, but I continue to have the same dream dipping my feet in the cold water of some river in an Asian country. The doctor told me I would never walk again and I would barely have any use of my arms. I had to be myself for a life of being bound to a wheelchair forever. Shortly after my relationship of 10 years ended. I had to contemplate shutting down or selling the business that I had been working on for 6 years. I had to process the unique and unusual grief of quadriplegia. My most recent psychologist called it bereavement. I'm mourning the death of myself and who I was because that person does not exist anymore. Everything that I am, was the freedom and dynamic joy of moving my entire body. Others who had come before me told me that I would eventually figure it out and find Life Again. Instead, I do not see any outcome other than moving like I was. So I came up with the 10-year plan; if I have not found happiness or I cannot be who I want to be, I would commit assisted suicide in Switzerland 10 years after my injury.
In the present.
I decided that I needed to try everything before I made the decision 10 years later. I would not be satisfied with myself and my choice if I just spent the next 10 years waiting to die. Since then I have experienced these things in my last two years. I lived in the hospital for 11 months. I left the hospital in a pandemic. I have been in isolation for 9 months. I have had 2 relationships. I sold my dream business. I have tried hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, physiology, acupuncture, EMS, robotics, tremor therapy, meditation, and acupuncture. I have tried adaptive gaming. I have been painting and writing. So far out of everything the only Joy I have found is from spending time in the sun, listening to music, and making connections. I have no desire for children or to get married. I don't want to have any pets. All I simply want is to regain more functional ability so that I can use that ability to further increase my capacities. So that hopefully one day I will be whole again. So every day I get up at 6 a.m. and I work, grind and hope. The only quality of life I see is being who I want to be. If I can't have that then I just feel like I am existing for others. I hope that I can look back at this story 10 years from now and cry in the relief that I made it. But all I have is doubt.
