Spot,

My problems weren't worse than yours. They were exactly the same. Everyone's injury is the worse that ever was to the person with the injury. Don't let anyone minimize your pain or your effort to come back.

I thought my world had ended and I gave up. I didn't see a future for me as a musician. I sat down after the reconstruction and cried. My left hand was the size of a cantaloupe. I couldn't see space between my swollen fingers, just stitches, gauze and dried blood. It was a month before I began therapy and for hours each day I just stared and the mangled mess on my arm. I still stare at the scars from time to time.

About four weeks into therapy I was in an antique store. Some kid was running loose and knocked over a glass display. I reached out with my left hand and caught a small glass paperweight. The pain was exquisite but I knew then that I had some hope left. Thats when I began my real effort to play again.

My therapist was a woman I worked with at The United Cerebral Palsy center where I am a technician. She knew I was a musician and she planned my therapy around that. She also gave me a Harmony Sovereign 5 string banjo and said I could keep it only if I could play it. Such is the power of the carrot and the stick.



Don