My new monthly guest post for the EasyStand Blog is up now. Today is my birthday and I wrote about my conflicted relationship with Halloween and my challenges coming up with decent costumes post-SCI over the years. So please check out Confessions Of A Halloween Baby.
I thought that I would pay some quick recognition to the fact that yesterday, October 20, World Osteoporosis Day was annually observed all over the world. As I wrote in a four part blog posts which you can read here, here, here, here, and a follow up here, to my great surprise I was diagnosed with severe osteoporosis in both of my hips and lower spine two summers ago. The primary reason for that was because I had spent 13 years mostly sitting in a wheelchair all day, thanks to my SCI. The fact that osteoporosis is called the “silent disease” is apropos because as I got into in great detail in my four part post on the subject, unbeknownst to me my hips and lower spine were silently losing bone mineral density as the years went by. At no point did any doctor explain what might be occurring to my bones, or enlighten me that it was a common, hidden issue with SCI, or recommend that I get a regular BMD scan to keep things in check. That was very frustrating. At least we caught it and I’ve been on medication designed to stop the BMD loss and hopefully build it back up. But it will no doubt be a long battle back to BMD levels that reflect my age group, if I ever get there again.
Here is a webpage that provides a decent quick tutorial on osteoporosis and World Osteoporosis Day, and this webpage includes an osteoporosis slideshow video that is worth the watch.
