"You must unlearn what you have learned."

The doctors at Craig had several priorities.  The first was stabilization of any injuries.  My back was stabilized in Tulsa.  Neck breaks are a much more difficult thing to stabilize, as the head is so necessary for most observation and movement.  At first there was talk about putting me in a halo collar.

The idea of actually having screws in my head terrified me.  Luckily, this wasn't necessary.  Instead, I was able to wear the much more comfortable J-Collar.

This pretty effectively prevented me from moving my neck at all.  There was another brace that I wore in the shower... I can't remember what it was called, but this one was pretty much my constant companion.

It made things difficult.  There were a lot of things that were mandatory for release that I couldn't do until my neck was fully healed.  I'll get to those at some point in the future.

Once my neck was stabilized I could resume the other rehabilitation exercises that dominated my days. 

Once a week a tech came around and put a schedule on each of our walls.  Rehab started early every day and went until late afternoon.  Considering we were all broken and sick this really was army-like.  We had physical therapy, occupational therapy, strength training, appointments with all kinds of doctors, alumni of Craig coming in to talk to us about life as paraplegics, wheelchair class, and others besides.

Physical therapy mostly had to do with making sure we could physically handle the changes that had happened.  Our joints were stretched and tightened using range of motion exercises, we would practice transferring from the exercise mats back to our chairs, we even had to practice sitting up from a prone position.  Everything was incredibly hard.  I can remember being driven to the verge of tears every time I had to start relearning how to do something that had been so basic before. 

Things got easier slowly.  Since I was eating again, my strength and stamina both increased.  In the beginning there were days that I could barely get out of bed or even sit up straight for more than ten minutes at a time.  But they pushed us.  They had to.  There was never a day when we didn't see improvement. 

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The images were taken from http://orthotape.com/images/products/Default/neck/miamiJ_collar.JPG and http://www.spineuniverse.com/conditions/spinal-cord-injury/halo-brace-use-cervical-fractures respectively. 

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