I’m going south. It’s my favorite direction. So, as soon as I moved south from Knoxville, TN, to Atlanta in 2003, I had two interviews at the Shephard Center as a triage nurse for The Andrew C. Carlos Multiple Sclerosis Institute. I was not hah-d, and so I went next door to work at Piedmont Hospital. That was my on ramp to Georgia.
I don’t want to forget all the construction zones going on at Shepherd because it was a visual analogy of the renovations taking place on our bodies. Therapy was like that construction site because I have to tear down old, unsafe structures before I can build a stable, new foundation.
Thirty-five new Acute Brain Injury (ABI) beds and therapy gym, 42 new MS Institute Universal rooms and psychology offices, a new Marcus building that houses the pain clinic, the seating clinic. the technology clinic, the driving clinic, and a total of 105,000 square feet renovated. The ultimate goal of this construction is a substantial expansion of the outpatient MS Institute. I’m a lost ball in high weeds.
My life’s not going well. For three weeks straight in April 2026, I’m participating in the Shepherd Center’s Integrated Therapy Program (ITP) for people liviń with multiple sclerosis (MS). This was one month after an active brain lesion was detected on MRI scans in March. Sorry to have to tell you that, but that’s what’s going on in my life. Yesterday and the day before was as good as it gets.
The Shepherd Center provides the best quality programming in the nation, from spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, stroke, multiple traumas, and multiple sclerosis to chronic pain.
Most disappointing of all, my ability to drive has been thrown out for discussion in counseling, and I’m scheduled for a driving evaluation in June. Triggers to fight were sticking up on me like the quills of a porcupine that
busted my bubble.
Nightly LifeStar landings on the roof of Piedmont Hospital were easily viewed from my bedroom window. Could that be an omnious warning that to drive is to injure myself and others?
Everything has been given to me — from the walls of the Woodruff Family Residence apartment to all the good that’s beiń done in the background of my life.
The first two problems identified right off the bat were that I was unsafe from my lack of balance and I was wasting a lot of energy wall surfiń. So, we drove over to the island of lost toys to pick up a power chair. My fortè is not sightseeing while operating the power chair, and they are hard as heck to push when they run out of juice.
I’m liviń in a framework of support and generosity that I didn’t build myself. Many generous philanthropists provided the buildings, the apartments, the landscaping, the programs, and on and on. The therapists provided the tools, the counselor donated an ear, God Almighty provided the breath, and I pitched in the discipline of my mind, which is not so hot. Apparently, my processing speed is delayed. So, it might be a year be-fo-wah I respond.
Every blessing carries a responsibility to carry through what I’ve been taught, and I think there are just a ton of blessings I don’t even realize.
Right now, my responsibility to carry through simply means showing up for therapy at the
MS Wellness and Therapy gym, which is conviently located downstairs, at eight in the morning to four in the afternoon. Integrated therapy is a full-time job.
There is a persistent pressure moving me toward the next level of therapy, from a place of fatigue to a high-velocity environment of movement.
The equipment feels heavy, and the back to back scheduling feels overwhelming, like a water gush from a fire hydrant rather than a drop of molasses oozing from a spoon. This intensity is the persistent pressure moving me toward the next level of therapy – accelerated!
The Integrated Therapy Program is a literal village of people — rehabilitation doctors, physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, exercise physiologists, case managers, counselors and social workers — all working to recalibrate my way of functioning.
Intensive therapy @ Shepherd
is that feeliń of being stripped down to the studs,
the bare bones of nothing, like Gideon the Israelite and Rembrandt’s c. 1655, ink on paper, Skeleton Rider.
https://stacyreneesweeney.com/2024/05/21/skeleton-rider/
Evaluations were a big gash to my ego. I’m just not as good as I thought I was. And so to have the physical therapist, Caitlyn, stabalize my feet with her hands and guide my gait with precision was exactly what I needed. I’ve been walkiń on tip-toes since my first steps.
https://stacyreneesweeney.com/2016/08/12/tiptoe/
The key to walkiń flat footed was just beneath my feet. Caitlyn put in the extra mile and made my experience so worthwhile. I’m talkiń about becoming my own home, and I want to be a mansion, all glorious within and out.
And this is the most important moment. Do you know about this? I look good in latex.
While I feel like my life is beiń renovated, the construction site is a mess. Feelińs of frustration fall from my face often. The therapeutic equipment and the Swiss exercise balls aren’t just clutter. They are the scaffolding for my safer level of walkiń.
When my routine, my physical space, and even the way I move my body are overhauled all at once, it’s a total system shock. Sometimes, the shock of intensive therapy — the parallel bars, the braces, the exhaustion — is actually the exit ramp from my original brainwreck. It feels upside down, ah reckon, because I’m finally being turned right side up.
§tacy §weeney
§tacyReneè§weeney 