December 7

It has been such an eventful day and I haven't even left the house! haha. On Monday, I started to go through all the business cards and informational brochures I had accumulated over the weekend. I sent several emails and have began to get responses back already. So far, I have the appointment with the Driver Rehabilitation Services next week and have been talking to the woman in charge about possible grants to pay for the hand controls I will need. Once I get some of the paperwork in, I'm going to have to go to the DMV to take a test in order to get my permit (UGH, it's like I'm back tracking 10 years and back in high school!)

Today, the chiropractor got back to me after sending a brief description of my case to the online chiropractic group he belongs to. Within minutes, he had a response from a doctor in Front Royal (only about 25 minutes away). While he hasn't met this doctor personally, his credentials were impressive. The doctor has worked a lot in the field of sports medicine and has personal experience with paralympic athletes... he just got back from RIO! I'm crossing my fingers that he's in network with our insurance! But I'm going to wait and see what responses appear and then compare them with the insurance allowance...hopefully I'll know something by next week sometime.

I've also been in touch with a company called "ReWalk." They have personal exoskeletons that people can use at home. The rep even told me they have some insurances cover it because it has shown to help patients so dramatically, just being able to be up on your feet, weight baring and getting your brain and body used to the motion of walking again. I filled out a questionnaire and they think I'm a good candidate based on my injury level, height, weight, etc. I just have to get a doctor's recommendation and I can attend one of their screenings...more than likely at VCU or the University of Maryland.

One of the other connections I made this weekend was a girl my age named Alex. She is sponsored by the company that makes the chairs I fell in love with at the expo. She's also an ambassador for Project Walk, which is a program across the US that I really want to look into at some point (I'll talk more about that a different time). But anyways, she's from Lancaster and not too far away from me. It can be really hard not having girlfriends in wheelchairs that face the same difficulties as you on a daily basis, so I think we both really enjoyed being connected and have been talking ever since. Today, she messaged me and asked if I'd be interested in a wheelchair dance team. There's one on the west coast, started by a girl named Chelsie Hill (I actually got to meet her this weekend, by the way!) She was on the SunDance tv show "Push Girls" and is also a rep for Smart Drive and has created a line of jeans for people in wheelchairs called "ability jeans." Their dance team is called the "rollettes" and they perform at various places, including several expos (unfortunately not this past one, though). So, Alex wants to start a team on the east coast and said I was the first person she thought of! My family laughs because I have awful rhythm, but I really did used to dance (12 years to be exact with my sweet grandfather driving me to every practice) and I was actually pretty good. I did tap, jazz, ballet and even a year of point (with those crazy ballet shoes where you stand on your toes). They had a dance workshop this weekend and asked people to come up front for some freestyle. Embarrassingly enough, the instructor (who was also on the show Push Girls) called on me and I couldn't just say no. (there's a video, but I'm hoping that doesn't make an appearance anywhere online). Afterwards is when Alex and I started talking and this guy even came up and jokingly asked for our autographs after the dancing. It's been a running joke with my family the past few days, but getting that message from Alex today was really exciting!

As far as school goes, I got in touch with the professor in charge of the other course I'm taking. She's been on maternity leave and it's made communication a lot harder. I still have to take both the midterm and final and there's a TON of information. Luckily, I've stayed on top of the material and can hopefully take the midterm early next week, then the final not long after. I keep reminding myself that I just need to make it through. The perfectionist in me is having a really hard time with this!