Hey Randy! Thanks for the links. It's funny how (with my back the way it is) I get caught up with the new technology, then my back gets worse again, and I fall way behind. Then I rinse and repeat that same process all over again. I'm just thankful that there are people like you who keep up with all this stuff and make life easier on me. I don't suppose your knowledge base covers Neuro and/or Orthopedic surgery as well? :O) LOL.....Maybe I can come to you for the latest and greatest improvements that may allow me to return to society fully....rejoin the workforce (instead of being on disability and drawing Social Security in my late 30's/early 40's). When my back gets really bad, I spend (SERIOUSLY....this is not an exaggeration at ALL) 23+ hours out of 24 in my hospital bed....along with (at last count...and again....not an exaggeration) my 14 or more pillows, which I use to shove here and there to get somewhat comfortable. So....I think you can see how that would make it pretty hard to use my X-terra :O) The doctor's I see always start out by saying that I need to understand that things will never again be the same as they were before the car wreck (which was actually back on Oct. 13th 1991...during half time of the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Dallas Cowboys game....it's funny how I can recall everything that led up to the wreck in PERFECT detail....up until we were hit in the rear and knocked into the rear quarter panel of the oncoming vehicle, which sent us air born....and I remember the car spinning in mid air, but in slow motion...I can even remember exactly where I had both my hands to "brace" myself lol....but then there was a lapse of a couple minutes and everything after that was with remember/time lapse of memory/remember/time lapse/etc). Sorry I got off topic there, Randy :O) lol.....it just fascinates me to think about it once in awhile...and knowing that God had to be looking out for me and the guy driving the car I was in, for sure!!! ....We had watched the first half at a friends house and wanted pizza from a specific place (the best EVER!! :O) , so we were moving the football party to the guys house who was driving the car he and I were in. It was about 20 miles away from where we were, but we weren't speeding....we really couldn't lol....the guy's car was a little 3 cylinder Geo metro lol....I normally always wore my seat-belt, but didn't have mine on when we left the other friends home, and the driver/owner of the Geo NEVER wore a seat belt....he always was a rebel about things like that and said that no one was gonna tell him whether to wear a seat belt! Anyway....about 3-4 minutes before the wreck, I realized my belt wasn't on, and so I snapped it up right away....didn't say a word about it...didn't make eye contact....just put it on....but "he" saw me put mine on and said something to the effect of " well....I guess I'll put mine on too" I wish I had some pix uploaded onto my computer to show you the remains of the Geo, but I honestly don't know how either of us would have survived without the seat belts...especially with the unbelievable number of rolls the car made!!!! We rolled up the hill in mid-air, played pinball in some young and springy tree's and then rolled all the way back down the hill, into the middle of the road and came to a stop on the roof. We were rushed to the hospital because we both had very stiff and sore necks, and my friend who was driving the car (HIS car) had a lot of pain in his right foot and ankle (probably from having it locked tight, trying to push the brake pedal down through the floor board!!! :O) He went back to work after only missing the next day (a Monday), and I was back after a week, then was off two more weeks and then was back to normal until DEC. 31'st when we were doing inventory. It had seemed like we got away with a miraculous intervention and had no real damage. Mark....my friend....kept having pain in his foot for a couple weeks and went back to the doctor, who had more x-rays taken....they found a rather noticeable hair-line fracture in that right foot, that this doctor found hard to believe they hadn't noticed in the initial x-rays the day of the wreck....until they found out what he did at work every day, and then that made it plausible that the hair-line had widened afterwards...but who knows. Wow....I'm SO SO SO off topic!!! I just don't want to leave a story half told :O) lol ....I'll insert a sentence above where I go into this crap, so that people who aren't interested in all this can pass it up, and I'll start a new paragraph when I get back to be MORE on topic :O) The point I wanted to make out of all of this, is that I didn't just give up after the wreck and take the lazy way out, by immediately trying to get disability Social Security. After that first surgery in Jan. of 1992, I didn' t heal right and they had to go back in in August of the same year to "do it right"...the way they SHOULD have done it the FIRST time....ESPECIALLY for a young guy in extremely good shape, who was the definition of a "jock". It was always some sport at ALL TIMES for me. I didn't like to stay at home....I wanted to be out playing Softball, golf, tennis, fishing, water skiing!!!/tubing/boogie boarding/slalom skiing.....anything for a rush! It was really hard for me to not do anything beyond what the doctor told me while healing, but I did, because I didn't want to go through a third surgery in the same darn year!!! Afterwards, I made a career change and was building log homes and substitute driving rural mail route's for the US Postal Service (it takes a long time...sometimes several years..over ten years in some cases...to get a full time position as a rural mail carrier with the post office). The log home building was fun for the learning a new trade aspect, but also for physical therapy to get back to the muscular tone I had before. Unfortunately, lifting those giant logs by myself (a lot of the time), put a WHOLE lot of extra strain on the disk above the one I had already shattered in the accident (the first one was L5-S1, which is the last lumbar (low back) vertebrae, and S-1 is the largest of the "butt-bones"), and I started getting the same symptom's I had right before I had to have surgery in Jan. of '92. This was in 1995, and when I went to see the Neuro-surgeon, he said that L4-L5 (the next disk up in the lower back) was herniated and leaking the viscous material inside, and needed surgery a.s.a.p. That one was a quick recovery. I was back and able to work within 5 or 6 months, which was much much quicker than the doctor's and rehab workers ever thought. I didn't go back to the log home building , though. I thought that would be pretty stupid on my part, unless it was my only choice at the time. Luckily the Postmaster at the Post Office branch I worked at, was a compassionate man, and he found other work for me there in the office, so that I could supplement my income until a full time route became available. I was good for 2 years and then started to have trouble again. I was married now and the distractions and the responsibilities of marriage, kept me gritting me teeth for another entire year, so I had to have another surgery in 1998 sometime. I honestly don't recall what time of the year it was, but I want to say it was in the fall. After recovery things were back to normal. I got divorced a couple years afterwards, but that had nothing to do with my back or any hardships faced during the time I was laid up.....but in 2003 I was on a golf course and in walking from my cart to the green, to putt, I fell down several times and it became harder and harder to get up each time. I had to call an ambulance and have my brother in law and Mom to go get my vehicle (at least I think that's who went to get them lol). We had an evil Supervisor at our branch at the time.... Young.....low self esteem.....no common sense whatsoever...I'm sure you all have met the type. Well, the person I had covering my route that day (I took the day off to get new tires/brake pad's/caliper's/alignment/etc......the works) had an emergency at the last moment and wasn't able to come in. Having already scheduled myself off that day, I left my cell phone in the car (as any golfer would do, who didn't want the other people in his/her group to berate him/her for the rest of the day) and when I checked my messages after a break following the front nine holes, I got the message and the supervisor tried to make me the bad guy. The funny thing, is that I had just told him a couple days earlier that my back was not doing so good, and that I might have to file for a medical leave if things didn't improve soon. He, of course didn't like it....he was a city carrier before moving to management, and there is some kind of behind the scene's war/hate fest between the city and rural carrier's. We have separate union's and both have things in their contracts that the others want in there contract....it's all petty nonsense, that has absolutely NOTHING to do with all of us worker's in the office....and I don't want to sound sexist here, but since 3 or 4 of the girls that work in that office agreed totally/if not originated the remark that If 75 to 80% of the carrier's weren't female, that the problem wouldn't exist. (with the long period of time you have to wait to get a full time route, it's often hard for a guy to survive long enough to get a full time job.....so there are WAY more women than men. Luckily I had family that were more than willing to provide a roof over my head, and I almost always had another good paying job to offset the short paycheck's at the post office. Dear Lord in Heaven!!! I've already written enough for this to qualify as a short story....if not a smaller sized book!!! LOL.........When I was writing earlier, my system was in another room, because our third system in the house was down for repair. It has been fixed for several days, but my brother in law just got around to having the time to place it back in my room, where i have it set up to allow my monitor to swing in front of me while I am laying in my hospital bed and my mouse and keyboard are on the table that comes with the hosp. bed, and I can scoot it off to the side when not using. It's an awesome help for me !!!!!!!!!!! The point that I was trying to make with all these details, is that I wasn't "playing the system". Each and every time I went down with my back, I couldn't wait to get to work rehabilitating, so that I could return to the work force and enjoy the outdoors that i love so much!!! My back has kept me from doing so very very much in my life, that it's hard to keep a positive attitude always....but I think I do a fairly good job :O)
Ok....back to reality, and trying to figure out what I was originally gonna say lol :O) Actually....if I WAS going to go off on another tangent, I certainly can't recall what it was :O) I'm pretty good at doing that :O) I was basically just wanting to thank you and others like you, who do keep up with the equipment....and the part that I most admire and am thankful for, is that you are more than happy to share it with us.I hope that this website is always here for people to get that assistance they need with their new products, that they can't find in their manuals (if they have a paper manual.....because there are still a large percentage of older people....and even younger stubborn ones, who aren't ready to find the manual on their computer...and I have OFTEN spoken to people like that and have asked them why they don't ask someone to help them to print the manual onto paper for them, and they have a pretty good answer, in my opinion. It's not very convenient to carry a folder or stapled together mass of 8.5X11" sheets of paper. Most manuals these days are more the size of a post card, and although that makes them thicker, they are still able to be stored more conveniently....and today, convenience is King! :O) Enough of my rambling on and on now. I hope whoever reads this was bored, interested in some of it or didn't waste the time to read through the whole thing :O) LOL I tend to go on and on much of the time, but especially on days like today, when my back is crushing me and I am trying to keep my mind off of it. Thanks again for your help and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Kindest Regards- Dave.
