Halloween, Thanksgiving and SCI Recovery :: Bruce Snyder's Status

(I wrote this post in early December, but I forgot to post it, so here it is!)

Halloween and Thanksgiving are standard American holidays and they are definitely a good way to mark the progress of my recovery. They seemed to so far away for so long and yet they flew right by this year.

When you have kids, Halloween is a pretty fun time for them. From picking out pumpkins, to carving jack-o-lanterns, to jumping into big piles of leaves, to various Halloween parties leading up to the evening of trick-or-treating. When my girls were younger, they would get so excited for Halloween. They loved picking pumpkins right out of a pumpkin patch and couldn't wait to carve them. We would get out Halloween decorations for the house and carve our pumpkins together. They would really get into it with elaborate designs that they would trace on the pumpkins and require some time investment to carve whereas I would always carve simple, silly faces on my pumpkin that took no time at all to complete, but would make everyone laugh. Well this was the first year where my kids were not into Halloween very much.

This year I was on my own to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Janene was away on a business trip and both my girls were with their friends elsewhere in town. Although I've been mostly walking with the crutches at this point, any time I need to carry something I still need to sit down in the wheelchair to do so. It was too difficult for me to hold the door open to greet the trick-or-treaters while holding the big bowl of candy, so I sat in my wheelchair. It was still fun though because I was down low enough to see all the kids at their eye level and they instinctively helped to hold the door open as I put candy in their bags. Many of the kids know me from coaching soccer, volunteering at the elementary school, etc., so they talked to me about how my recovery is progressing. It was nice to see them all.

Janene's folks came into town for several days to celebrate Thanksgiving and it was nice to have some family around for a while. They participated in our Thanksgiving traditions of fixing a big meal, going to see a movie and playing games afterwards. We also took the girls to see The Nutcracker ballet in Denver (as we have done for many years now) and afterwards we had dinner at a wonderful sushi restaurant. They also helped us put up Xmas holiday decorations around the house including all the outdoor lights. Janene and I have always done this with the girls but there's no way that I can climb a ladder and be on the roof in my current state so Janene's dad helped with that part.

I continue with my recovery from the spinal cord injury. I continue to walk on a treadmill just about every day during the week because we have a couple in the fitness room I'm building at my work office. I've worked up to about 40 minute sessions walking at about 2.5 miles per hour. Although this is not much by normal standards, it is really helping my body to recover quite a lot.

I also I got a stationary bike recently so that I can ride it on a regular basis. It is already help to rebuild the muscles in my hips and butt. I'd love to just put one of my bikes on my trainer an spin like I used to do, but there's no way that I can sit on a regular road bike seat at this point. The stationary bike has a wider more padded seat that allows me to ride for about 20 minutes at a time with a small amount of tension. Although it's a very different ride, it still feels good to be pedaling again.

I continue with physical therapy appointments in Boulder twice a week. These sessions are important because my physical therapist shows me many exercises to do and is continually checking my progress, but most of the recovery is my responsibility. I have to keep doing the work every day and stay motivated to beat the muscle atrophy that has transformed my body so much. Because I have been through muscle atrophy almost 30 years ago when I had one of my knees reconstructed, I know what the hard work is all about. I also know that physical therapy is what can save you from a major injury. And so, I fight on.

How to Test For the Shellshock Vulnerability and Upgrade Bash Using MacPorts on Mac OS X 10.9.4

Given all the hype recently over the bash Shellshock vulnerability, no matter what operating system being used, any affected version of bash should be patched and/or upgraded immediately.

You can quickly test your operating system to see if your bash version is vulnerable by following instructions on the Shellshocker website. TLDR, here is the command you need to run to test bash on your machine:

Note that the version of bash in my path (the newer one from MacPorts) is not affected by the vuln. Now I will test the version of bash installed as /bin/bash:


Notice that I piped the script directly to /bin/bash instead of relying upon the version of bash in my PATH. Because I have already installed Apple's update (noted below), /bin/bash is not affected either.

Apple Update 

Apple has already released an update containing a patched bash version, so it's very easy to update the standard bash version located in /bin/bash. But, if you are like me and you are using MacPorts to manage many binaries within Mac OS X, you may not be using the version of bash installed by Apple.

Use of MacPorts to Upgrade Bash

I have used MacPorts for years and I continue to get grief from people who love Homebrew. I must say that I do like both, but for some reason I have always kept coming back to MacPorts. Anyway, if you are using MacPorts then upgrading to the patched version of bash is especially easy. Below are the commands to upgrade bash:

Installing PostgreSQL 9.4 beta2 on Mac OS X 10.9.4 via MacPorts

After reading the blog post from EnterpriseDB about how Postgres Outperforms MongoDB, and because I have always preferred PostgreSQL to other databases, I had to check out the document handling capabilities that PostgreSQL has added recently.

Because I began using a newer computer this summer, I had not yet installed PostgreSQL. So I pulled up a previous post about installing PostgreSQL using MacPorts and did some searches to find the latest PostgreSQL. Below are the commands I ran.

First, I needed to figure out what the latest version of PostreSQL is in MacPorts:

This allowed me to see that PostgreSQL 9.4 beta2 is the latest version supported by MacPorts. So I embarked upon an installation of this version:
This install went off without a hitch, so I created a directory for the database and initialized the database:
From the ouptput of the installation, I copy/pasted the startup command and sent it to a file. I did the same for both the start and stop commands so that I have scripts to start and stop PG quickly:
After starting up PG for the first time, I opened another terminal in another tab to watch the log file to see if the database was started correctly:
Then I pulled up the docs via the local install of them (file:///opt/local/share/doc/postgresql94/html/index.html) and started digging into the document database support to play around.

I Can Sqeeze My Butt! :: Bruce Snyder's Status

Two weeks ago I awoke to the discovery that I can squeeze my butt again! Those of you who read my last blog post know that I have paralysis across my butt and down the outsides of my hamstrings and that in that post I said: 

'Even if the movement of my feet does not return, I really wish that I could regain the feeling in my butt and the ability to squeeze the muscles so that I could build them back up again.'

Well believe it or not, I got my wish! I could hardly believe it myself! I was still lying in bed on Sunday morning when I made the discovery. I was in such disbelief that I laughed out loud and woke up Janene. As she heard me she bolted upright, bleary eyed and said, 'Are you OK?' Still laughing I told her I can squeeze my butt and we both could hardly believe it. Even though it was a very small squeeze, it's a sign that the healing is starting to take place. 

Technically the muscles in the butt are the gluteal muscle group as shown in the diagram comprised of the glueus maximus, gluteus medius and the gluteus minimus. The ability to squeeze these muscles is controlled by nerves that connect impulses sent from the brain, down the spinal column to the muscle to cause a contraction. The fact that the nerves have healed enough to allow me to squeeze them is a really good sign, it means that my body is healing itself. 

The squeeze was very small and quite weak but it was a start. Because these muscles have basically been dormant for five months means that they are terribly atrophied and therefore extremely weak. But even in the two weeks since this movement returned, I have been working the muscles to build them back up and the squeeze has only increased. At this point, it's not a huge increase, but as my Mom always told me growing up, 'Slow and steady wins the race.' 

Who thought I would be so happy for such a minor thing. But when I experienced such a devastating injury that forever changed my life, I learned very quickly to be happy for what I still have, as I have mentioned before. Now it's just a matter of working these muscles regularly via rehab to bring them back to life. Speaking of rehab, I also made a big change on this front last week. 

Changing My Rehab 

Since being released from Craig Hospital in June, I have been going back to Craig for rehab. After all, it is a world-renowned hospital for spinal cord and brain injuries. When I was first released from the hospital, my Dad was still in town and was driving me wherever I needed to go including to rehab at Craig Hospital. At first, I was going to rehab at Craig three times a week. It helped a lot to be in close contact with my physical therapist and to continue seeing my friends there. But it didn't take long for me to really get tired of making the 90 mile round trip and sitting in traffic for 2.5-3+ hours each time we made the trip. Remember, this was when I was still exhausted all the time and this drive only made things worse for me. I also got wise to the fact that insurance companies only pay for a certain number of visits. So I decided to keep doing my rehab at home and only check in with my PT at Craig once a week to more or less maximize my PT visits. For a while this worked, but because I am now back to work full-time, even making the trip to Craig once a week sunk a lot of time and I didn't get a lot of benefit from a one hour appointment once a week. So I began looking into other options including the Boulder Community Health's Mapleton Center for Outpatient Rehabilitation and also a company what specializes in spinal cord injury (SCI) rehab named Project Walk. 

Project Walk was especially compelling to me because it focuses on rebuilding the muscle mass that SCI patients lose from the injury and hospitalization. The professionals at Project Walk help patients to design a workout specifically for them and their situation to focus on their own goals. My ultimate goal is to walk again without the need for braces and crutches, and although this is dependent upon my body and its ability to heal, there's a lot that can be done in the meantime to get my body ready for more movement to return. I applied to Project Walk and received a call back within a day and began talking to them. Everything sounded great and was very much in tune with the way that I have always enjoyed pushing myself in my physical fitness, but there was one catch -- they wanted me to come to their San Diego office for three weeks. The problem with this is that I am just too busy at work right now with recruitment duties for open positions and I don't feel like I can put this on hold for three weeks. Because of this, I decided to look into a more local solution in Boulder for now. 

Boulder Community Health has an outpatient rehabilitation clinic called the Mapleton Center. A dear friend of mine who experienced a spinal injury a couple years ago went here for his rehab and told me that they really helped him. So I paid them a visit and got an evaluation by a PT who worked at the Spaulding Institute in Boston prior to coming to the Mapleton Center. Spaulding is a rehabilitation clinic out east that is well-known for its SCI program. So this week I began doing rehab at the Mapleton Center to see if this PT can help get me to get on the road to a more rigorous workout that will help me work toward my goals. This certainly doesn't mean that I have ruled out Project Walk, in fact, it is still very much on my mind. 

In speaking to Project Walk, I have learned that this place is a premier rehab clinic for SCI patients. Based on 10 years of medical research and partnering with hospitals and universities, Project Walk is like not other rehab clinic I have discovered. And although they originally wanted me to come out there for three weeks, in speaking with them they suggested that perhaps we could condense it to a week and just work a lot more hours while I'm there. Furthermore, I also learned that they are opening a clinic in the Boulder/Denver area in March 2015. So I'm kinda thinking that I need to see how things play out at the Mapleton Center before traveling to Project Walk in San Diego. If I can attend PT in Boulder for a while and then go to Project Walk in San Diego, perhaps I can be ready to take on even more when the Project Walk clinic opens here in the Boulder/Denver area. 

Dinner With Gareth and Mike 

This past week I had dinner with my coworker Mike O'Donnell and his buddy Gareth who helped me as I laid suffering in the street right after the accident. Not only was it was wonderful to see Gareth again, but this time with a clear head, it was also great to have dinner with my co-worker Mike who I really like. I learned a lot about both Gareth and Mike that night and I really enjoyed our time together. Spending some time with Gareth in a social setting really clued me in to who he is and I discovered that we have a lot in common in terms of the way we look at the world. Gareth also told me about a fascinating book that I'm just beginning to read now. 

Books

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm constantly reading something. I'm always on the look out for new books to read and, in fact, I even keep a list of books in a notebook in Evernote (which I use for everything now). The book Gareth told me about is titled, Biology of Belief. This book is about how new research shows that our DNA does not control our biology, instead our DNA is controlled by our positive and negative thoughts. Certainly this topic is of extreme interest to me right now because of my medical situation. I don't have much to say about this topic yet because I haven't read the book yet. But suffice it to say that I am reading and trying everything I can get my hands on at this point to help heal myself. 

When I told Janene about this book, she said it sounded similar to one recommended recently by a co-worker titled You Are the Placebo. This book is about how one's brain and body are shaped by their thoughts, their emotions and their intentions, not the other way around. Again, a captivating topic for me right now so I plan to read this book next. 

Perhaps these two books will help me move from the hope of more movement to the real belief that I am going to get movement back and I am going to walk one day. After all, I did tell Project Walk that my goal is to walk, but my dream is to one day cycle and run again. 

More Yak Shaving to Install Git Via MacPorts But With MacOS X Mavericks

After performing a fresh install of MacOS X Mavericks on two computers recently. Because of the reinstall of the OS, I also had to reinstall a bunch of other tools including git. In doing so, I realized that the configurations that I had in my old .bash_profile would no longer work correctly and so I had to update the location of a couple files. 

I blogged about this previously so I had already done some research about installing MacPorts on a computer and I knew that I'd need to install the command-line tools for XCode first. So I installed XCode first using the App Store and then followed the instructions to install the XCode command-line tools. Once these were installed, then I was able to proceed with the installation of MacPorts. 

So I downloaded and installed MacPorts, ran sudo port selfupdate followed by sudo port install bash to get the latest version of bash. So that the OS can make use of this newer version of bash, I added it to the On MacOS X, I added the path to this newer version of bash to the /etc/shells file. To actually make use of this updated version of bash, I had to make my terminal aware of it. I always use iterm2 instead of the Apple terminal, it's just so much more powerful. So I changed my profile in iterm2 to launch this version of bash by adding the bash login command to be run when iterm2 opens a new terminal, /opt/local/bin/bash -l. Now when iterm2 starts up, it logs in to this newer version of bash automatically for me. Now I'm ready to install the git tools. 

To install git, I run the following command in the terminal that I've always run to install git via MacPorts: 

Unfortunately this was unexpected, but the answer is right there in the error -- instead of installing git-core, just install git. So I ran the command again with a different name for git:
This got further but threw another error about the readline utility, so I had to force activate the readline utility. Beyond that, everything installed correctly.

However, the git bash completion didn't seen to work. I was seeing the following error from my .bash_profile when the bash prompt was getting set up:
bash: __git_ps1: command not found
It turns out, because the name of git in MacPorts was changed from git-core to just git, the paths to some of the git bash completion had changed as well. All I really had to do was update my .bash_profile from this:
/opt/local/share/git-core/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
to this:
/opt/local/share/git/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
and everything worked correctly.

Discovering a New Normal :: Bruce Snyder's Status

I know it has been a while since my last blog post, but I've been rather busy lately trying to find my way again. I know I have said this before, but having such a traumatic injury has really changed my life. It's not only the physical changes of being in a wheelchair, but there are many other things have been affected about my life and my family. Because I have not blogged in a while (shame on me), this post is full of a variety of topic swirling around in my head right now. 

Family Leaving 

Since the accident back in April, my family was here in our house helping us with everything. My parents were here most of the summer and Janene's mom Susan was here for four months straight. We have had numerous other family members visit, but these were the mainstays. As of a couple of weeks ago, everyone has left including Susan. At first, I kinda felt like my safety net had been removed. She was always here for me since the accident, willing to help me with anything. But I have quickly discovered that although I do need help with tasks, if I take my time I can do many things myself. For example, yesterday on my way home I ran a bunch of errands and had to make five trips in and out of the house to get everything out of the car. Prior to the accident, I could have gotten it all in a couple of trips. It's just another adjustment. 

Air Travel 

Back in August, I was able to take my first trip involving air travel. I only went for one night to my company's office in Chicago. Everything went very well, but it was not easy to sit on the plane for two hours without moving much. Unfortunately I wound up with a middle seat so I wasn't able to easily get up and out of my seat, but I did shift around as much as space would allow and I made it successfully. It really made me realize how much I move around during the day what with standing, shifting around in my wheelchair, sitting in other chairs, etc. This was a good test as a first trip involving air travel. I'm certainly not ready to travel to my company's headquarters in Munich, Germany yet, but I will eventually need to build back up to making this trip. 

Driving 

Although Janene and I have always vowed not to buy our girls a car when they each turn 16, almost dying in a tragic accident can really change your perspective on life. While I was in the hospital recovering, Janene told me that I was going to need to buy a new car because our oldest daughter Jade was going to be driving my car now. My response was essentially, 'But what about what we talked about and agreed upon?'. To which she responded, 'Bruce, you were nearly killed in this accident. Life is too fucking short to hold back on such things.' This definitely gave me pause and has really shaped how I look at life now. This is not to say that we have thrown out all reasoned arguments and discussions, more that we believe as parents we should be developing an environment of trust for our kids rather than holding things back from them. Also, just to put this into perspective, my old car is a 2001 Nissan Maxima with ~150k miles on it. So we're not talking about a care that is even close to being new. 

Anyway, one thing that has really changed is the way I drive a car now. Being that I'm no longer driving my car and I still need to get a new one, in the meantime, we decided to have hand controls installed in Janene's car. When I was in the hospital I learned to drive with hand controls. After over 25 years of driving a car using the foot pedals for the accelerator and brakes, because I have no movement in my feet, I now have to use hand controls. It's a handle on the left side of the steering wheel and is easy to use, it just takes a bit to get your muscle memory to begin thinking in terms of the hand control vs. the foot pedals. Using the handle, you push to brake and pull down to accelerate -- it's really that simple. There's also a removable metal foot plate that keeps my feet from bumping the real accelerator and brake.

Since mid-July, I have been able to drive myself to work every day. The great thing about driving my wife's car is that it's Toyota Highlander, an SUV. This means that I can put my wheelchair in the back of the car without breaking it down (i.e., taking the wheels off of it, etc.). Because I'm lucky enough to be able to stand and I can now walk with the braces on my legs if I have something to lean on, I have taught myself to lift the wheelchair into the back of the car and then make my way along the driver's side by hanging onto the car and kinda shuffling along. It has been a liberating feeling to be capable of driving myself to work and running some errands around town.

The Fucking Health Insurance Industry

I know this is a bit off-topic, but it has been incredibly frustrating to navigate the insurance industry bullshit. In my life, I have been lucky enough to be a very healthy person and rarely ever needed to utilize my health insurance. Since this accident, I have been extremely grateful to have good health insurance. However, I have also discovered that there seems to be some super secret list of things that health insurance does not cover or that they are somehow required by some fucking insurance credo to give you a difficult time about. There's nothing quite like a hospital hounding you personally for a bill of nearly $400k because your health insurance keeps stalling. We had to chalk up the $2200 installation fees for the hand controls as an out-of-pocket expense -- and that's just one of the many costs that come out of own own pockets. I'm extremely fortunate to have a very good attorney to help me navigate the insurance industry. As he has explained to me, insurance companies get stuck between their own policies and the laws of different states. All I know is that without my attorney, I would be going mad right now.

Walking With Arm Crutches 

Several weeks ago, I got some new leg braces. This might not sound very exciting but for me it is because they allow me to balance so well that I can stand in place without holding on to anything. Taking off walking is still out of the question right now because I'm still weak from the muscle I lost from being stuck in a hospital bed and a wheelchair. So for now, I'm able to walk using leg braces and balance with arm crutches. I certainly won't win any races, but it is such a wonderful thing to be six feet tall again. I realized this before and even blogged about it, but because I'm six feet tall when I stand, I'm actually taller than many people. But having been in a wheelchair for a while now means that I have been much shorter than everyone around me. I can now be eye-to-eye with people again while speaking with them which is very liberating. I can also hug my girls and Janene again without the wheelchair being in the way. I'm not walking full-time yet but I'm pushing myself to do it more and more and have been standing up for longer and longer periods of time throughout the day. As nice as it is to be my full height again, it still sucks to rely on the arm crutches because I can't carry anything. Sure, I can wear a backpack and take, say, my laptop from room to room, but I can't just carry a glass of water or a dish of food to the dinner table. Hopefully one day.

At least now I can stand more easily and I'm getting stronger. This means that I can begin to cook some things again. Something that I have always prided myself on is cooking for my family. For years now, I have been the primary cook in our house just due to Janene's work schedule. I have really learned to love cooking for my family over the years and it is something that I have missed since my accident. I'm not able to cook a huge meal yet, but smaller things here and there. I'm hopeful that with increased strength, this will get easier. I'm also enlisting Bailey (11) and Jade (16) to help me with many things, especially cooking. 

Discovering a New Normal 

For those of you who have been following my blog posts, you already know that my spine is now crooked. To date, I have been able to alleviate much of this problem by putting a lift in my right shoe. But whenever I'm not wearing shoes I am crooked again which is rather frustrating because it throws me off balance entirely. I hope that as I continue to build strength that my body will learn to compensate more and more. But this is just one of many small things that I am learning to live with now.

I also have paralysis across my butt and down the outsides of my hamstrings. This paralysis affects all of the gluteal muscles so that I cannot even squeeze the muscles in my butt. The result is that I have no muscle tone in my butt and this makes it very difficult to sit on certain surfaces for very long. So I need to be very careful about the surfaces I sit on and I cannot sit on most chairs, even if they are soft. On my wheelchair, I have a special cushion that contains multiple chambers of air. I also have a thinner more portable cushion that I can use on standard chairs and in the car. Even if the movement of my feet does not return, I really wish that I could regain the feeling in my butt and the ability to squeeze the muscles so that I could build them back up again.

Another difficulty is the difference with my bladder and bowels. When you have a spinal injury, depending on the level of the injury, it's very common to have changes in the function of your bladder and bowels. My situation could be a lot worse, but still the nerve damage has affected both bladder and bowel control. Luckily I can feel when my bladder is full or when I need to go. This is great because many people with spinal cord injuries cannot. Unfortunately I cannot pee on my own, so I must use a catheter to drain my bladder. Furthermore, my bowels are just not the same as before the accident so I just need to be more conscious of when I need to go. So I have had to learn to manage this whole new set of challenges. 

Janene did a wonderful job of installing various ramps around the house so that I can get around on the main level of our home, but I'm still not able to easily climb stairs. So we had to move our bedroom to the main level until I recover enough to get upstairs. We have set a goal for end of the year for me to get back to our master bedroom and bathroom on the second level of our home. This goal is about gaining back enough muscle to be able to climb the stairs more easily than I do now. At the moment, it seems like a far off goal, but I have been surprised at the changes I have seen in the last three months.

To address the rebuilding of muscle, I'm also looking into some new rehab options now. I feel like I've been sitting and waiting, for what I don't know. So I feel that it's a good time to ramp up my physical therapy to focus on rebuilding the muscle mass that I have lost. Not only will more rigorous workouts encourage more healing of the nerves, but it will also prepare my body for the time when movement does return. Instead of having some movement return and still being extremely weak, my hope is to help my body rebuild itself to where it was prior to the accident and be better prepared for the movement to come back.

I think the most difficult thing for me has been the amount of help I need with so many things now. Previous to my injury, I enjoyed helping others with various tasks and I was extremely independent with anything I did. Now I'm the one who needs help. This has really been difficult because I went from such extreme independence to a fair amount of dependence. My family and friends are wonderful about providing me the help I need, but I have never been someone who needed help. I always enjoyed providing help to others. Now the shoe is on the other foot.

I still have some not so good moments when my emotions get the best of me. I guess I haven't been meditating as much as I did when I was hospitalized and I need to change this right away. I guess in the hospital I had the time to do so and now, being back to work I don't have so much time available. It has been amazing to me that having gone through such a life change you kinda go through a grieving process for the things you have lost. Anyone who knows me knows how physically active I tend to be -- cycling, running, hiking and general fitness was a big part of my life. Needless to say, this is all on hold right now until I determine if I will regain movement in my feet or not. It's really a wait-and-see situation because nobody can predict what will happen. Everyone's injuries are unique and everyone's body heals differently. I'm still very hopeful that I will regain movement.

There are many other small things involved in my new normal. Although my life is full of new challenges, I still feel very fortunate that my situation is not worse. I try to be as independent as possible and I continue working to rebuild the strength that I have lost. 

Back to Work, No More Back Brace and a Crooked Spine :: Bruce Snyder's Status

On June 30th, I went back to work part-time. In the mornings, I go in to the office and in the afternoons I work from home so that I can rest and continue my physical therapy.

Getting back to work was very strange because the day I went back was the first day for our group in the brand new office. Before the accident, I was working on the build-out of a new office space. My friend and co-worker Whitney and I had been through the design process with an architect and the construction had just begun. Then my accident happened and Whitney had to take over all responsibilities for the project. I had every confidence that she would see the project to completion and do a tremendous job and she absolutely did! The office looks outstanding, you can definitely tell it is a hybris software office by the look and feel. With a capacity of 50 seats, we now have tons of room to fill. It's so good to be back to work with everyone, even if it is only part-time. I look forward to building up to full-time hours in the office eventually, but when I go into the office in the morning and then do PT in the afternoon, I'm pretty exhausted by the end of the day. I will need to work up to it over time.

In early July, my brother and his family arrived for a week to visit. He had not seen me since he left one week after the accident. So he had not seen me out of bed at all. Now I am able to stand in place for periods of time and also walk with the aid of leg braces and a walker. I am walking around the house as much as I can. Janene suggested that I consider walking everywhere in the house that I need to be and it's probably a good idea because it will help my body to get much stronger. There's also very strong research out there that says if you teach the body to do something it once new how to do before the accident that those capabilities will return over time. This is why my physical therapist told me to walk as much as I can. Even when I am in the office I stand up at my desk while I work. Everyone in the office has a motorized standing desk so I stand up as long as I can and then sit back down in my wheelchair when I'm tired.

On Friday, July 18th, I had a follow-up appointment with my surgeon and he gave me the OK to stop wearing the back brace. What a joy to not require that damn thing anymore! I was required to wear it for 12 weeks to prevent twisting or bending over too far. While at the surgeon's office, I also got to see a clear plastic mold of the spine with some of the titanium hardware attached to it. The surgeon said, 'That's exactly what you have on your spine,' and I was very surprised because it appears to be pretty big and bulky. He said it has to be to withstand the rigors of the way the spine works. We also asked him about what seems to be a crookedness of my spine. Without the back brace you can really see it now. When I stand up straight and you look at me, you can see that I'm leaning to the right. Even in the latest x-rays you can see how crooked it is. The surgeon confirmed this and said it's probably due to the spacers that they placed between L3-L4 as the cartilage disc had to removed because it was so damaged. Evidently this is just something I will need to get used to living with now.

Back Home, X-Rays From the Accident :: Bruce Snyder's Status

This past Tuesday I was discharged from Craig Hospital and I was finally able to come home after eight weeks of healing in the hospital. It has been so great to be home again with my family, but it's certainly not without its challenges.

Because I am not able to move my feet, I am in a wheelchair. Such a change presents problems when you live in a multi-level home. So currently I am confined to the main level of our home. Janene and her mother Susan worked with the neighbors to move our bedroom from the second level into the room where my office used to be on the main level. She also installed ramps so that I can get in and out of the house, our family room and the front porch. I'm very grateful that we did not have to go through a giant home renovation to accommodate a wheelchair.

It feels comforting to be back in my home with my family, but it also feels strange to be at such a lower level. When I stand up I am six feet tall and this is the perspective from which I have always known my wife, my children, my parents and in-laws and my home. Being in a wheelchair changes that perspective instantly. I now have challenges trying to do just about anything in the kitchen. Doing laundry presents some issues, but I'm lucky that we have a front-loading washer and dryer. Because I'm still wearing the back brace, I'm prevented from bending over completely and reaching anything that falls on the floor. For this situation, I have a reacher-grabber. I will be very happy to get rid of this back brace, but I still have four weeks of it left (it needs to stay on for a total of 12 weeks).

Still, even given these challenges, the mental boost from just simply being home again is much needed. So much better than being alone in the hospital every night. I feel like I'm not in this alone anymore, like my family is here with me.

I had forgotten that Janene had some photos she took of a 3D digital rendering of the fractures in my spine and an x-ray while I was in the ICU in Boulder Community Hospital. The 3D rendering shows the dislocation and fractures in the L3 and L4 vertebrae. I hate to think about what the surgeon had to do to manipulate my spine to reset that dislocation. In the past, I have seen videos of spinal surgeries and it's not pretty. But I'm told that my surgeon is extremely talented and sought after for spinal and neuro surgeries.

The x-ray shows my spine after the surgery. Not only did they insert two rods and eight screws to fuse the L2-L5 vertebrae, but they also had to clean up all the bone fragments from various other fractures of the transverse process bones that occurred in the accident. When my pain meds fully wear off I can feel the hardware in my back and it's not fun. I'm still on pain meds for the next month, but it's a fraction of what I was once using. I'm worried that once the pain meds are done that I may deal with chronic pain, but I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, I'm still trying to get used to sitting up in my wheelchair for the full day without a rest.

I also have photos of some of the road rash from the accident. I will spare you the sight of these because they are gruesome. But I can tell you that I had horrible road rash along the left side of my torso, both up and across my back as well as down my leg. Additionally, I had a nasty laceration about six inches long on my left hip that had to be stitched together. There were other spots of road rash on my right side and other various places. My right ankle got pretty banged up in the accident. So much so that they x-rayed it to see if it was broken but they believe it only sustained soft tissue damage. Of course this is all in addition to the incision scar from the surgery that is about eight inches long. Even a week after the accident when I was finally coherent, the wounds looked pretty bad. When I was admitted to Craig Hospital, they took photos of all the wounds. Several weeks after I had been there, I saw the photos and almost dropped them when I first saw them. They were so bad that it was shocking to think that this was my own body. Thankfully, it's all healed up now and all that is left are lots of scars.

The muscles in my lower back are extremely tired by the time the evening rolls around. I'm told that they probably did not cut through them for the surgery, but instead they probably split them along natural lines. I won't know for sure until I have a follow-up appointment with the surgeon next month. At any rate, my lower back muscles are really tired and sore by the end of the day.

Every day I have to stretch out the muscles in my legs because they get so tight for not using them full-time. I also stand for various periods during the day to get my body used to having the full weight on it again. Even though I cannot stand for more than about 20 minutes at a time, I remember when I couldn't stand for even one minute. The healing continues to progress and I continue to be hopeful for a recovery that includes some movement in my feet. For now, I'm happy to be home and surrounded by the love of my family.

Discharge From Craig Hospital :: Bruce Snyder's Status

Today was my last day at Craig Hospital. It's hard to believe that it has been six weeks since I transferred there from Boulder Community Hospital after the accident. I have never been away from my Janene and my girls for this long. I can't wait to wake up in my own bed and see my family every morning.

But by no means is this journey over. The acute healing was just the first stage in this long road of recovery. I'm sure there will still be many ups and downs, but my hope is that being home with my family will bring me much needed comfort and mental relief.

Although I am excited to go home and be with my family, it is bittersweet to leave Craig Hospital. Because Craig is a non-profit hospital that specializes in Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), everything is tailored to people in those two categories. Everything at Craig Hospital is wheelchair friendly, everything is reachable for folks in wheelchairs, all the people who work there are trained to deal with all the uniqueness of these two injuries, etc., etc. But most of all, the hardest part was leaving the friends I have made during my stay.

Even though I will be back at Craig to begin out-patient therapy next week, it was difficult to say to goodbye to my friends. These are the people with whom I laughed and cried, who I helped keep going when things were tough and who helped pick me up when I needed it. It truly brightened my day to see my friends make advancements in their healing and their therapy. In a strange way I will miss being with these people every day. Not only did this accident change me but these friends I made while at Craig changed me. I will miss them.

Over the last several days I have watched more TV than my entire stay in the hospital because of the World Cup. I spent the weekend watching the games in my room and a community room at Craig that has a big screen TV. I don't have a favorite team so I'm not rooting for any particular team. I just love to see a good match and boy have there been some excellent matches!

But the best thing about this day was actually coming home. My family really worked hard on transforming our house so that I can live on the main level. My in-laws cleared out my office and our neighbors helped move our bedroom furniture from the second level into it. My wife had ramps installed and a neighbor helped my father-in-law and Dad build a platform to help with one of the ramps. And this is just a few of the many things that they did. But pulling into the driveway really made me smile because they had put up banners and balloons across the front porch and even one huge one across the driveway! As I got out of the car, I realized that many of the bunches of balloons were tied to various jars of Justin's nut butters, a product for which I had developed a huge affinity right before my accident. I used to eat it with a spoon right out of the jar and finish off a jar every few days. But I have no idea how I'm going to eat THIS MUCH nut butter! It was truly a wonderful welcome. The best part of it all was hugging everyone in my family and knowing that I get to stay at my own house and sleep in my own bed for good instead of going back to the hospital at the end of the day.

Injury Details, Healing and Friends :: Bruce Snyder's Status

The last couple of weeks have been my best since the accident. Last week I began walking with the aid of braces on my lower legs and a walker. I am able to walk further and further every time. By no measure is it easy and I move very slowly because I have no feeling or control in my lower legs. At least the braces keep my feet stable so I can stand on them. This feels so amazing each time I do it that I am usually grinning from ear to ear. These experiences walking have made it pretty clear that I will be able to walk eventually, but it will be very different than how I walked before the accident.

There are so many things that I have learned about spinal cord injuries (SCI) since I have been at Craig Hospital in Denver. For example, the spinal cord can heal for up to two years or more! I met a guy who was a patient here at Craig 12 years ago and was a quadriplegic. Through the years, he has regained use of his entire upper body and even some of his lower body and legs. I was absolutely floored when this guy told me his story! This just goes to show how long it can take for spinal injuries to heal.

The spinal column consists of four regions as depicted in the image on the left-hand side. When injury occurs within a particular region, it can result in damaged nerves in that region and therefore impairment of certain body functions that are controlled by those nerves. If an injury is severe enough, the result can be paralysis of everything below the injury site.

Since I have been here at Craig, I have seen all sorts of different injuries in people. Some folks who have complete paralysis below the spinal injury and do not have that function return while other folks who have had a Cervical level injury who are able to walk again after sufficient healing. This is a good illustration of how unique each injury can be. There are so many variables that influence the situation that doctors cannot predict exactly what will happen to any single person. They have certainly seen many different injuries and can generalize about what functions they think might return after sufficient healing but there seem to be so many cases where people have had seemingly miraculous recoveries.

The spinal cord actually stops in the Thoracic region and a bundle of nerve roots known as the horse's tail (or cauda equina in Latin) continue through the Lumbar and Sacral regions of the spine. Because my injury involved fractures to the Lumbar region (L3 and L4 were fractured) it affects the horse's tail of nerve roots. This also means that there could be damage to the nerves below the injury site in the Sacral region. Among other functions, these nerve roots control the legs. This is why I lack control and sensitivity in portions of my lower legs and my feet. I have been told by my doctor and physical therapists that these nerve roots can take quite a while to heal so I will need to be very patient. This is basically a wait and see approach to my healing. In other words, it may take some time before we know if any of the functions that I have lost will return to any degree.

The fact that I am being released on Tuesday is very welcome. It has been just over seven weeks since my accident and just over five weeks that I have been at Craig Hospital. I am eager to get back to my home to be surrounded by my family and friends (and my dogs) on a regular basis. It's difficult to describe, but my friends here at Craig agree, although time seems to fly by, you also feel like you are standing still and that the accident was just a few days ago.

I have really made some wonderful friends while here at Craig Hospital. What we all have in common is the total experience of a spinal cord injury. But more importantly, all of the little experiences that go along with it, both good and not so good. Although we all started out as strangers and we are from places around the US both far and wide, we all quickly learned to comfort one another. It's a strange thing to make so many new friends when you are in the most vulnerable state of your life. This is how I learned the true meaning of compassion. For this, I will be forever grateful. It's the little encouragements every day from your friends that keep you going. These friends are both the people who are here to help you as well as the other patients to whom you have grown so close. Seeing their progress really boosts your mood and you never forget to tell them so. We have all had good days and bad, and it's these people who help pick you up and keep you moving forward. I never dreamed that a hospital could be such a positive place. But a hospital can also be a rather lonely place at times, too.

Although alone time can be a good thing for learning to heal your mind and to accept the injuries that changed your life, but being alone for too long can be difficult. As your loved ones continue to live their lives, you are alone in the hospital focusing on your injuries and your healing 24/7. Someone asked me the other day, 'So what is your other job?' and I laughed immediately because I knew what she was asking. Her implied notion was that you are doing rehab to focus on healing your injuries and that is your full-time job right now, but what is your real full-time work outside of here?

Healing in and of itself is exhausting, let alone when the PT starts up. And depending on your overall state of healing, adding the rigors of PT to the mix can nearly send you over the edge of what you can handle mentally. Thankfully I have had excellent doctors, nurses and techs while at Craig Hospital whose skills and experience have helped to speed my healing process. Add to that family and friends who have visited quite frequently and I have experienced an extremely speedy recovery and discharge. I have been told that rarely do they see someone heal so quickly and be released. All the medical professionals I have seen have commented about my health, physical fitness and positive attitude because these are the biggest factors in my healing. Who would have thought that what my oldest daughter calls fitness crazy is what healed me so fast?!

Why I am Thankful :: Bruce Snyder's Status

In previous posts since the accident, I have thanked many people who have helped to get me through this very difficult time in my life. This accident has changed my life and changed my of view the world.

When I arrived at Craig Hospital, my doctor was reviewing my case with me and he mentioned the collapsed lung, the chest tube and then he told me that my other lung had deflated as well but somehow it re-inflated. Then he referred to me telling him I was gasping for air between my screams of pain as I lay in the street after the accident. He told me that my gasping probably is what re-inflated the lung and saved my life. This statement really shook me to my core. It was the first time I think that I realized I really could have been killed. That night the nightmares stopped and the next day I awoke with this feeling I had never felt -- I was absolutely elated to be alive. At that moment, my life changed again. No longer was I trying to figure out this whole experience, all I could think about was the fact that I was alive and I could still be with my family and friends. My next thought was that the accident could have been so much worse. And since that day, this has been my mantra for everyone -- it could have been so much worse. For this reason, I suddenly became extremely thankful for all the things in my life.

Below is a list of items for which I am thankful that help to describe how I'm feeling since the accident:

• I am thankful to be alive. I may not ever walk the same as I did before and that's alright. If I'm meant to be in a wheel chair or walk with braces, so be it. I accept that this terrible accident took place and I have chosen to move on with my life. 
• I am thankful for the friends and family who have kept me in their thoughts. I have had so many people reach out via email, text, phone, tweets, hospital visits, etc. to let me know that they are thinking of me. I was especially moved by these messages because they have helped me more than you will ever know. 
• I am thankful that my injuries are not worse. I am in the Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) unit on the third floor of Craig Hospital. Down on the second floor is the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) unit. I see many people on the second floor whose mental existence will never be the same again. I have meditated on this many times and I have so many things to look forward to because I was spared a head injury. Even if my feet remain paralyzed, I am thankful that I still have my head, my hands and my heart intact. 
• I am thankful that I can still do the work for my profession. Because I have my head and hands, there is nothing stopping me from eventually returning to my work. I have many people in the office who will assist me with difficult tasks, but for the most part I can continue after I have healed. 
• I am thankful for compassionate people in this world. I am so grateful that Gareth acted so quickly to help a stranger in distress. None of the other folks standing around me got down on the pavement to provide me a calming voice. This is probably the biggest overarching lesson that I have learned from this experience. Without compassion and love for your fellow human beings, people would not exist. 

I encourage anyone who reads this to take the time to show some compassion to the people in your life. My family and friends, the folks here at Craig Hospital, even some people who I have never met all demonstrated to me that compassion can help to heal many wounds, both physical and emotional.

Regaining My Indpendence :: Bruce Snyder's Status

Last week I got to escape from the hospital for a few hours to attend my youngest daughter Bailey's continuation ceremony from fifth grade to sixth grade. I really had a wonderful time. I got to see Bailey with all her friends who have grown so close over the years and teachers who we have known since Jade attended Louisville Elementary some years ago.

I also was able to see some of our friends from the Louisville community who have offered my family so much support since the accident. I'm so glad that I chose this as my first major goal in getting back home because it was like an end of an era for many families in Louisville. We are not the only family in our circle of friends who watched their youngest finish up at Louisville Elementary. There's a whole group of kids who are the youngest sibling in their house just like Bailey and they are all friends. This whole experience made me really want to be back in Louisville with my family and friends again.

As I get closer to my discharge date from the hospital (June 17), I can't help but think how far I've come since the accident almost six weeks ago. I've had my good days and not so good days, but through it all the constant has been such amazing support from so many family and friends. I cannot say thank you enough to all the family and friends who have offered support. Just hearing that someone is thinking about me really helps. It's these simply things that really lift my spirits when I'm not having such a good day or when I'm feeling tired from the physical therapy. I was truly amazed that two friends from Los Angeles, Amelia and David, flew in on Thursday and Friday just to visit me. It was so great to see them and to have their positive spirits around me. This just raises the question again: how do you repay such tremendous support? I am just stunned by the compassion people have shown me through this experience.

Speaking of my discharge date, the closer I get to it, the higher my medical team raises the bar for me. This week I began doing the various physical therapy classes from 8am - 4pm every day. This is just exhausting. The good news is this hard work has allowed me to begin to sleep at night without a sleeping aid. I used to challenge myself with personal records from all of the cycling and running I did, now I'm challenged with everyday tasks like putting on shoes or getting out of bed in the morning. Before the accident, I always took for granted all the simple things in my daily life. Who ever thought that those easy tasks would ever be such a challenge?!

I'm also learning that I need to plan ahead for everything I do. Even for such simple tasks as getting out of bed in the morning. Before I get out of my wheelchair and take off the back brace in the evening, I need to pick out the clothes to wear the next day. This is so that I can reach them while I'm lying in bed before I put on the back brace. At least I do have more independence now. I can get up in the morning by myself, I can shower by myself, I even drove a car for the first time today. I'm beginning to feel like I am regaining my independence. The next big tasks are adjusting to life at home and getting back to work. But I still have a couple of weeks to prepare for these changes.

Remembering My Cycling Accident :: Bruce Snyder's Status

The first write-up about my near-fatal cycling accident was posted about two-and-a-half weeks ago. In that time I have done a lot of resting, healing and reflection upon the accident. My condition has improved by leaps and bounds in that time and I am just simply elated to be alive.

During that first post, I wasn't truly feeling 100% myself because it was only two weeks after the accident. I was still dealing with a lot of pain and I was beyond exhausted due to the shock my body incurred. I also experienced a tremendous emotional strain from the accident. In the beginning, I had nightmares about it. Even though I was completely snowed by heavy narcotics, the accident played through my head over and over again. I had trouble distinguishing dream state from reality. I was really fucked up, both physically and emotionally. But in the last two or three weeks, I have spent a lot of time meditating and thinking very deeply about the whole experience. I can confidently say that I am truly feeling much better now. I finally feel like myself again. My wife Janene has even told me I have that old spark back in my eyes. But this doesn't mean that I'm completely past everything. I still have moments where it's difficult to think back through it all; where I break down in tears out of the blue. I feel like I lost a part of myself that day. This accident has changed me.

Because I find it therapeutic to write about difficult situations I have experienced in my life, I think it will do me some good to recount everything I remember from this accident in writing. Here is what I remember about the accident.

On that Thursday afternoon, my buddy Tim and I went riding out north of Boulder to Nelson Road, to 75th, around the Boulder reservoir on a dirt road and back to downtown Boulder. It's about a 30 mile ride. Usually I would have felt completely spent by this point in the ride, but that day I was riding my brand new bike that I purchased less than two weeks prior. This new bike changed my riding because I did not have nearly as much body fatigue as I did with my old bike. So when we got back to downtown Boulder, Tim went back to work and I decided to ride up Flagstaff Mountain before going back to work.  

After riding up part of Flagstaff, I came back to downtown Boulder via 9th Street. There was another cyclist and a slow car in front of me so I couldn't go very fast. I was riding at a rather slow pace and cars were passing me. Out of the blue, I am slamming on my brakes for a car that came gunning through the intersection of 9th and Marine like rocket. Because I slammed on my front brakes, I went flying over the handlebars, landed directly in front of the car that came gunning through the intersection. Everything happened so fast that I couldn't process what was happening... until I could. 

Only seconds later, I realized that I was being run over by the car. In the midst of the chaos, I was thinking to myself, 'I am being run over by a car and I'm going to die. Where are Janene and my girls?' The next thing I remember as I am gasping for air and screaming from the pain, someone is speaking to me (who I now know was Gareth) asking me my name and telling me to calm down my breathing. I focused on his voice until the EMTs arrived. 

Unfortunately, through it all, I remained conscious. All the way to the hospital and into the emergency room where a small army of people descended upon me to assess the damage. I was in excruciating pain. I begged them to knock me out. But they said they could not do this because they needed to know from me what parts of my body hurt and what parts did not. Then a surgeon is asking me if he has my permission to inject some dye to check my organs and then take me to surgery. At least I had the sense to tell them that they were not doing to do anything to me until Janene was there. Unlike me, she would have a clear head and be capable of making decisions. I had to tell them Janene's phone number at least two or three times. They said they spoke to her and that she is on the way. Then they start giving me doses of Dilaudid, a heavy narcotic pain medication. 

After the pain meds began to be injected, I can't recall much. I have flashes of memory like a haunting dream. I vaguely recollect Janene arriving but after that everything went black. The next thing I remember is a series of near waking moments in the ICU. The pain was unbelievable and I kept half-waking up only to be thrust back into a shroud of pain that engulfed every part of me. Then I was given more pain meds and I drifted out again, everything faded to black. Over and over this happened for the first week. 

Janene told me only a couple days ago that back then I didn't even realize the seriousness of the situation until I recognized that both my parents and Janene's parents and my brother were in my hospital room. All of them live in Illinois and would have driven 15 hours to get to Boulder. She said that the look on my face told her that I realized how grave the situation was at that time. The next week or so was a confusion of dreams and a barely lucid state for me. It was only after this first week that I partially awoke out of the snowy narcotic-induced state that I had been in. I had many visitors the first week and even into the second week. Although I recognized them at the moment, I have little memory of who actually visited and what we discussed.

As painful as this has been for me to write down (this post took me two days to write), it has already helped me to deal with the whole situation. This is definitely the most difficult experience of my life.

The good news is that I am healing well and continuing to rest. My projected release date from the hospital is June 17th, a whole two weeks before the original deadline. My doctor says he has no choice because of the rapid progress I have been making.

Tonight Janene and I ate dinner at a small Thai restaurant near Craig Hospital. It made me feel good again, like I'm returning to the real world.

Car vs. Bike in Boulder, Colorado :: Bruce Snyder's Status

On Thursday, April 24, 2014, I was in a very serious cycling accident in Boulder, Colorado while riding my new Cervélo S3 during the lunch hour and I am currently hospitalized in Denver, Colorado for at least the next 60 days. 

Damage Report

In the wreckage, I suffered 11 fractured ribs (10 on the left side, most in multiple places, and one on the right), fractures of the L3 and L4 spinal vertebrae, one collapsed/punctured lung, one deflated lung, a nasty laceration on my left hip that required stitches and loads of road rash all over my back and left hip from being run over and rolled by the car. The worst part was being conscious through the entire ordeal, i.e., I knew I was being run over by a car.

Current Status 

After undergoing emergency spinal surgery involving the insertion of mounting hardware, rods and screws from the L2 - L5 vertebrae to support the fusion between L3 - L4. Also, L3 and L4 were dislocated which is what damaged the disc between them requiring the fusion. They also had to clean out much debris from various spinal process fractures (fractures on T9, L1, L2, L3, L4) that punctured the spinal dura and required repair. There was also damage to the left psoas muscle and I experienced an ileus, a disruption of the normal propulsive ability of the gastrointestinal tract. Luckily they removed my chest tube while I was in the ICU under heavy pain meds. When getting out of bed, first I must put on a rigid clamshell brace from my armpits to my pelvis, two pieces that velcros very tightly together. This is not fun due to all the rib fractures. I am now able to control everything from the knees up with the exception of my butt. I do feel my feet somewhat as I can distinguish sharp vs. dull touches in some areas but I am not able to flex my feet/ankles or wiggle my toes at this time. After the surgery, I was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Boulder Community Hospital for 10 days or so. Since this time, I have been transferred to Craig Hospital in Denver, Colorado. Craig is a world-renowned hospital for it's spinal and brain injury rehabilitation programs.

(For those who are curious, I'm told that the bike was left almost untouched. But I will certainly have my family take it to Excel Sports in Boulder to be fully evaluated. )

A Very Special Thank You 

There is one guy who deserves a special thank you for his compassion for a stranger in distress. Gareth, your voice rescued me and got me through the initial accident and your clear thinking helped me more than you will ever know. After you visited me at the Boulder Hospital, I totally fell apart just because I heard your voice again. We will meet again, my brother. 

Also, a special thank you to Mike O. for introducing Gareth and I after the accident. Thanks, buddy. 

To My Family and Friends 

My wife Janene has truly been my rock through this entire ordeal. Never did she waver and, for me, the sun rises and sets with her. She and my girls have given me such strength when I needed it most. I am truly blessed with my family and friends.

My brother, Michael, was like a sentry -- by my side, from early morning until late into the night, supporting me in any way he could. I love you, Michael!

The moment my brother, my parents and my in-laws received the news of the accident, they packed their cars and hauled ass through the night 1000 miles to be by my side. I love you all so much and I could not have gotten this far without you. You are all amazing!

Thank you to my close friends for whom this experience only brought us closer. Karen, Dan, Anna, Sarah, and Sasha, I love you guys! Filip, you are very special to me and your dedication to visiting me and helping me keep my spirits high is stellar, thank you! Mike O., the chicken curry was delicious! Who knew this dude can cook *and* write code, thank you! Tim R., you have been my cycling buddy for a number of years and we were riding together the day of the accident just prior to its occurrence. You've stayed by me and met my family and helped in any way you can, thank you!

To all my friends and neighbors who immediately mobilized to provide my family with more delicious meals than they could possibly keep up with eating, you have really made us feel loved and watched over. Not only has Louisville, Colorado been ranked as one of the best places to live in the USA by Money Magazine for the last several years, the community of friends and neighbors is like an extended family -- you guys are the best!

Thank You To Everyone 

Thank you for all of your phone calls, emails, texts, tweets, concerns, hospital visits and well-wishes from everyone around the world. The level of compassion that I have experienced from near and far has been absolutely overwhelming for me. Please understand that I am not able to communicate directly with every single person simply due to the sheer volume of communications and the amount of time I am now spending doing rehab at Craig Hospital. I still get exhausted fairly easily doing rehab and just trying to live my life right now at Craig Hospital -- and this is coming from someone who could easily run 10 miles or ride 30+ miles at lunch just a couple weeks ago. This whole experience is absolutely flooding me emotionally and physically.

The Gory Details 

For those who want more details as the shit went down, please see the Caring Bridge :: Bruce Snyder website set up my extraordinary friend Jamie Hogan. This website is where Janene has been posting updates about my experience since the beginning. I will be adding my experiences henceforth here on my blog as I travel the winding road of recovery.

Conclusion 

Life is precious and I am so very happy to be alive.

And please, please do not ever text and drive.