It’s been six months since I fell off my bike, landed on top of my head, and broke my neck and damaged my spinal cord. From the morning after, when I got out of my hospital bed and stood up, we started talking about recovering in six months. 



When I say “we,” I mean Vanessa and I. Not my doctors and us. They kept saying it would be a year before I’d be able to do the same activities I did before the accident. When I said I’d get at least one mountain bike ride in before the snow fell, and would be skiing by December, the look I was met with said, “that’s ridiculous.”



As of January 30, it’s now been six months. Is life exactly as it was before? No. Am I doing everything I was before? Yes.



How's your recovery going?



I'm often asked this question, and every time, I pause and deliberate in my head about how to respond.



On the one hand, recovery is spectacular, as I'm able to do all the things I once did. That's hundreds of times better than what things looked like when I first wrecked my neck. To say anything short of wonderful might suggest I'm not incredibly grateful to be where I'm at today. It's not an exaggeration to say that I could have died or at least become a quadriplegic. In fact, one of the doctors early on said I technically was a walking quadriplegic, as I experienced paralysis in all four limbs, with my upper body being more severe than the lower body. So, compared to where I was and where I could still be, my recovery has been spectacular.



On the other hand, I'm not fully recovered, though no one would know if they watched me move around and do everyday tasks. Nor would anyone know if they saw me on the slopes, mountain bike trails, or in the gym unless they saw me doing bench presses or dips.



That said, someone might read this with interest in what's possible after sustaining an injury as I did. So, setting aside my gratitude for being alive and able to do almost everything I did in the past, here's a more objective assessment of my recovery after six months.



We did get a few mountain bike rides in before the snow fell and got our first day of skiing in on November 16, which was 3 1/2 months after the injury. It was a pretty special day of skiing.







As of today, we've skied 21 times this winter. Last weekend, I was working on my carving, seeing how sharp I could cut my turns and lost my edges. I crashed hard, head first, right under the chairlift. I paused for a moment before getting up, just to make sure my head was still attached correctly. It was, and still is. I knew I'd eventually crash and was happy to find out I could crash and come out of it unscathed.



We've had the 4th snowiest winter on record this year (it must be climate change...eyes roll), so I've done a ton of shoveling and snow blowing. Like mowing the lawn in the summer, it's a great way to get in some conditioning work to complement my strength training.



As functional as I feel, and as active as I've been, there are still some ways I haven't fully recovered. It's possible I never will. None of this is life-altering, but it's worth mentioning so that anyone else who sustains a similar injury has a frame of reference during their recovery process.



The following are the main ways I'm not yet back to 100%:




Sensory nerve dysfunction: As it has all along, cold water, or even a cold breeze across my skin still feels painful instead of cold. The only way I can explain it is that it's like pressing on an area you bruised by walking into the corner of a table. When getting into a cold shower or swimming pool, you'd sense that it's cold. I sense that it hurts, which means it's cold. If it's hot, it feels hot. Also, my pointer and middle fingers often hurt on my left hand, especially when they are cold, and if I brush the sides of my middle finger, it causes a burning sensation. On more rare occasions, I get the same experience on my right hand, but much more often it's just my left.