Michael Maag

It seems like there are so many ways to get organized that you need to organize them all. Is that obsessive compulsive?
Which way should I choose to organize my life?
Which way should I choose to organize my work?
Do they have to be the same thing?
Is there enough time?
Who has the answers?

On Aug 3, 2003 I was hit by a car while training for a bicycle race. My spinal cord was partially severed at T-9. This is known as an incomplete spinal cord injury. I have VERY limited ability to move some muscles in both legs. For example I can wiggle two twos on my right foot. I have come to terms with not being able to walk. Life in a wheel chair is different and hard at times. Life is hard for everybody though. I certainly have it better than most.
My problem is chronic pain. I suffer from two different kinds of pain related to my spinal cord injury.
1. Nueropathic pain in both of my legs. Essentially from my thighs down it feels like both of my legs are waking up from being asleep, and that someone has given them a good punch to really activate that sensation, on top of that they feel as if they are in a vat of boiling oil. The electric burning tingling is always present and it demands my attention constantly.
2. I have a sharp stabbing pain that is episodic right at the transition zone between the part of my body below the injury and that above. This pain starts in my back and radiates out along my ribs. The episodes are brief maybe 45 – 90 seconds but they happen several times a day. They are white hot attention getting. I can not think, or breath or do anything but freak out because of the pain.
I live in a drug induced haze: Fentynal, Lyrica, Percocet, Baclofen. Recently we started pumping morphine directly into my spinal fluid via my Baclofen pump.
Unfortunately I have made a deal with the devil and I don’t think either side of the deal is good for me, like most deals with Satan.
To get enough Baclofen and Morphine into my spinal fluid to do any good I loose all tone in my legs, and I can’t trust my experience of the world. I am sure that the drugs make me experience the world in way that is markedly different than the others around me. But even with these high doses I don’t have anything approaching pain relief.
I don’t know what to do. I need to be out of pain to think straight so I can work. I fear that I will become a drooling vegetable if I get enough drugs to be out of pain.
I hope that the medical community can come up with something soon to help those of us with SCIs.

I want to take picture of the night sky that I can be proud of. This is a huge challenge for me. Working with the telescope from the wheel chair is difficult, but no excuse.