TM & I
HOWARD S. KAATZ (swimmerh(AT)pacbell.net)
Thu, 19 Mar 1998 12:42:10 -0800
My name is Howard and I am 61 years old. I was diagnosed with TM in
July 1996 at age 59+. I am divorced and live alone.
The onset came very suddenly after losing my balance when arising in the
middle of the night. I fell and it took me approximate one hour to get
back up. Within two weeks I was unable to walk. Prior to this I had no
stress, medications, flu shots or anything else.
Before that time I swam at least one mile every day. I had no
indication of anything non functioning or about to be in my system.
There was no stress, flu shot, trips to caves, etc., nor do I really
care about how I got this, why I got this or the etiology of the
disease. That to me is looking backward and that to me is a waste of
time which at age 61 there is so little left.
Initialy, when diagnosed, I had full paraplegia in both legs and was
unable to move them. I now walk about 300-400 feet with a walker on
land and can walk indefinately in 4' of water. At the 3 1/2 foot level
in water I can do about as well as I can on land.
My normal day now starts off at 5:30 AM, wherein, the first 90 seconds
(no more) I feel sorry for myself and then we go into one hour of
stretching exercises. That is followed by another one hour of
strenghtening exercise. I have put a series of grab bars on one wall of
my condo and I use this as an exercise area.
After this I either go to physical therapy or work. I still use a wheel
chair and have to transfer in and out of the car. Each transfer takes
about 10 minutes (which is better than the 40 minutes it used to take
when I first started this process). If I go to physical therapy there is
another hour of exercise (which I do 3 times weekly).
When I go to work, I may have as many as 8 to 10 transfers in and out of
the car daily depending on my schedule. Upon completion of my work
schedule I either go to water therapy or swimming. (I now can do about
3/8 of a mile without the use of my legs after the first lap.) One
night per month I talk to spinal affected patients at a local hospital.
My evening routine consists of an additional hour of stretching and
exercise prior to retiring.
I don't worry about the different sensations or areas of periodic pain
that occur and I just live with them.
I have been receiving TMIC messages for approximately 3 weeks now and am
seriously considering dropping out as there is a lot of extraneous time
consuming messages that I find do not warrant my time reading.
My goal is to walk unassisted on June 15, 1999 at my 40 year college
reunion which is a long way from lower extremity paralysis experienced
20 months ago.
The exercise therapy is frustrating, but with that ultimate goal in
mind, I do what I have to do. I remember that it took over three weeks
to just wiggle my foot at the ankle, and since then my progress has been
upward.
I take medications for the spasms and for urologic control as I have all
of the appurtenant effects that most of you have. Living in the greater
Los Angeles area, I consider myself lucky to have the quality of medical
care that exists in this metropolitan area. Having spent over thirty
years in health care administration, I have decided at the onset of this
malady, that I would let my doctors handle the medical care and I would
do what I had to do to recover. So far it has been successful.
The only out of the mainstream medical care that I did research on is
the taking of 4 amino-paradyne and decided to pass on it as the risks
were too great for someone living by themselves.
I hope the above information is helpful to