Another entry, will probably be too long, but here goes. Thanks to all of you I am inspired to write on. Thanks so much for the kind words of encouragement. LK I never answered your question "is the Neuromove a gizmo or gadget?" It is a gizmo because it is a fairly complicated device. Gadgets are simple things, like a shoehorn, etc. Remember, my blog, my definitions. I promise, more gizmo's and gadgets coming, but first more musings. Sue, you are absolutely right, some days the goal is to survive the day. Great goal. Sometimes we spend the day or days just trying to get back where we started the week. Great insight, thanks for the input.

Time for another story. When I was in insurance sales training, I was told about two golfers. The first year Jack Nicholas made one million dollars and was the number one golfer in to world, the 50th rated golfer on tour made less than $100,000. Think of that. Number 50 was the 50th best golfer in the world out of over five billion, and yet barely made a living. Achieving your goals takes hard effort and is not for the faint of heart.

That story changed my life. The year I was told the story was my first year in insurance sales. I made $40,000 that year. This was in the mid 1980's. The next year I set the goal of making $100,000. I broke that down into weeks. That meant I would have to make $2,000 a week. I charted each sale every week, subtracted those which did not issue or accept the policy, etc. After 26 weeks I was averaging $2,200 net dollars a week in income. Two weeks of the 26 I made less than $2,000. Some weeks I made over $4,000. My mentor in the business said he had never seen anyone like it. Saturdays when he was watching fishing shows on TV, I was out selling insurance if I had not reached my goal that week. I was determined to be the best I could be.

That is the good news. The bad news is that then I got complacent and lazy. I finished that year only making $82,000. It was several years before I was able to make that kind of money again. I thought I could just turn it on again and make more money the next year. Life was good. Then the first wife developed cancer, and I hardly worked at all. Caring for her became my work. We had to refinance the house just to survive. The moral of the story is: make hay while the sun is shining, you never know when the rain will come. If you think it may get worse, it just might. You must make the best you can of your present situation.

Actually, I now realize that the tough part of my rehab is just beginning. The easy part was the first four months which I just completed. According to the experts, Most of what I am going to get back came in the first four months. It was easy to stay motivated when every few days or weeks I was seeing improvements. I have picked the easy low hanging fruit, so to speak. Now the hill gets steeper. The improvements are fewer and farther between. The work to get the next improvement is greater, and the improvement smaller. Now the real challenge is upon me. Lets see what I am made of. Today we are all facing the rest of our life. What will we do with it?

None of this is meant to demean the battles many of you face everyday. Some of you face battles I couldn't begin to imagine, let alone handle. The many heart wrenching stories I read here make me realize how lucky I have been. I am just a few neurons away from not being able to write this blog, no matter how great my motivation. Having said that however, remember the bit about playing the hand we are dealt? Just play it! Do the very best you can with what you've got. Like Sue so aptly said, some days the goal is just to survive. That's OK. We all have such days. But we all have better days as well. When you are having a better day, make the most of it. Enjoy the moment! Relish the good days, survive the bad ones. Live each day to the fullest. Remember the bit about hope. Don't lose it. We must have it, even if it is just that tomorrow may be a somewhat better day.

Anyway, gone on long enough for today, this is April and we have had some of the coldest weather of the winter this past week. Hard to believe the ice should be off the lakes in a few weeks, but it should. It does look like the snow storm that was predicted has passed us to the south. See, the "experts" are not always right! Don't give up. Play out your hand. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to post a picture of me carrying my canoe.