My 58-year-old inventor son Colin Cudmore has been paralyzed from the waist down since he suffered an aortic dissection (of both ascending and descending branches), back on August 16, 2023, and should have died. But he didn’t die. At the end of August he transferred from Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis to Majestic Care on the outskirts of Bloomington where I have visited him twice weekly, while speaking with and writing about him on a daily basis.
He is recovering, as he puts it, humorously, “at a daily rate of 0.0003%.”
And now, it appears as if spring has indeed sprung. Just like his Garden Tower Project, two of which we planted on March 31 . . .
. . . and as of today are declared ready for harvest . . .
. . . so too, is Colin declaring himself well on the way to recovery, of possibly even the use of his legs!
Today’s post, on caringbridge.org/colincudmorehealing:
April 19, 2024 As he gets the blood moving, Colin has his best day ever!
Journal entry by Ann Kreilkamp —
When he answered the phone this morning, Colin sounded unusually upbeat. I told him so. He agreed, said he had had a great day yesterday, and his pain continues to be low. So what is this, 9 days/nights straight? [Nearly twice as long as the next longest low pain period, nearly a month ago.]
Here’s how his day went, and it’s a doozer.
Marita there in the morning. [She visits three times a week.] Then, in the afternoon 45 minutes with PT Brooke, doing the same balancing exercises to build core strength while sitting on side of bed with feet on floor as the day before, for 36 minutes this time, about one/third longer than the day before. After that, the mode on the machine that stimulates thigh muscles, followed by the mode on the same machine that electronically soothes thigh nerves.
Then, he got in his newly revived wondrous $25,000 electric chair [which his friend Josh found for $250 on facebook] and zoomed outside, to stop under a tree. He adjusted the chair so that he was horizontal, but with head lower than feet, so they could drain. (They were congested, as the day before, from all that time being on the floor, but not as bad!) Next, intuitively, he realized that he needed to fill them up again, and drain them again, over and over, TO GET THE BLOOD MOVING. So he did that, adjusting the horizontal to feet below head, feet above head, etc., on and on.
“And you know what, Mom? I could actually feel the blood moving to and from, up and down my legs. So does that mean I’m not really paralyzed? What does it mean when I can feel the insides of my legs but not the outsides?”
Wow. Quite an intuition. And quite an observation [and question!].
He had told the staff to come get him when they were ready to put him to bed. So, five and a half hours later, he was finally fetched inside, after spending the afternoon in a near ecstatic state, absorbed in loving the leaves, and continuing with his new wheel chair design in his imagination. Absolutely glorious, he concluded. (And it was a glorious spring day, with temperature just right and bugs not yet out.)
“Wow! Sounds like it was your best day ever!”
“Yes. My best day ever.”