Wow man. I'm sorry about your situation. Very happy to see you trying to live life ! Props brotha. I just had a neck fusion c4-t1. And Doctor said it's basically stronger then ever. How ever the vertebrate above the fusion and below are the weakest links. But listen keep your head high man. !!! Stay strong. Have a safe trip
Kotrin 3rd Gen...Adventure
- Thread starter Kotrin
- Start date
IBallEngineer
New member
We all complain a little until we see stronger people, like you, making do with what they have. A few years ago we met a paraplegic in a Cherokee while doing some rock crawling. One of my jeep friends ended up giving him his D44's when he upraded to 60's. He said, that guy does more than I'll ever do, he deserves to be helped. And it's true, tell your dad, and your friends that they have my respect and admiration. I'd never leave them on a trail, or anywhere if they ever needed me.
buccaneerbandit
New member
congrats
I very much agree and respect your life choices Kotrin. Tomorrow is never promised so live life today and from the looks of it you are doing just that. having had a L5-S1 discectomy myself and 3 fused vertebrae in my neck I can somewhat understand what you must be going thru. I hope you have an amazing trip with your family. Dream like you will live forever and live like you will die tomorrow.
I very much agree and respect your life choices Kotrin. Tomorrow is never promised so live life today and from the looks of it you are doing just that. having had a L5-S1 discectomy myself and 3 fused vertebrae in my neck I can somewhat understand what you must be going thru. I hope you have an amazing trip with your family. Dream like you will live forever and live like you will die tomorrow.
psraff
New member
Much respect, buddy....
I can't imagine the pain, fear, and panic this could put someone through. I ended up with back issues and closest thing they could tell me was two bulged disks. Dude, I've never been in such pain and fear as the weeks following that. I bought a Teeter Hangup inversion table. It saved me. After 3 days of using that, one of the two discs shifted and I thought I paralyzed myself. After about 5-8 seconds I had such relief it was amazing. I spent months on that to keep those two discs stretched out. I'm not 100%, but that table saved me thousands.
But that's nothing compared to you. Again. Much respect. For you to keep living and still making memories for your family and kids.
I can't imagine the pain, fear, and panic this could put someone through. I ended up with back issues and closest thing they could tell me was two bulged disks. Dude, I've never been in such pain and fear as the weeks following that. I bought a Teeter Hangup inversion table. It saved me. After 3 days of using that, one of the two discs shifted and I thought I paralyzed myself. After about 5-8 seconds I had such relief it was amazing. I spent months on that to keep those two discs stretched out. I'm not 100%, but that table saved me thousands.
But that's nothing compared to you. Again. Much respect. For you to keep living and still making memories for your family and kids.
Thanks, I come to this area more than I do Facebook and such just BECAUSE of the community. I have a split family from my Dad and Mom divorced early in my life and my Dad's side of the family has been above and BEYOND helpful, physically and MENTALLY during this trial. My Mom side, doesn't give a rats outside of my Mom. Frustrating, but I can't change people's view.
I plan to do whatever I can with him during the 4th of July weekend even though I know I'll be still in lots of pain and recovering. I know he may not understand, or fully appreciate it, but I truly believe in the years to come he will be grateful for me doing it.
Thank you all!
The doctor said the same thing to me in regards to it being the STRONGEST and the weakest in the fact it FORCED more stress on the brother and sister joints. Now I full hardheartedly that each person and situation is different even out of a million or more. My FUSION that was supposed to be stronger is actually in worse shape after 6 years. I have doctor transcribes from my other specialist that said it was over 50% fused and was doing GREAT is why he felt I could return to work before 1 year like normal. Now according to my current specialist(who even though screwed up) I still trust and believe to a degree in what he says. My fusion isn't even 10% fused, its almost like its got weaker. We had talked about after the spinal cord simulator to potentially do the re-fusion to fix it completely. Now I pray that you don't experience this.
My advice is that you take it easy, follow what the doctor says and be patient and spent lots of time dreaming about the future of the 4Runner. =)
Thanks!
They did a lot of work and help during this last trip and my post here and video's(once they finish uploading) should show it. I don't use my cane, my walking sticks and other item's like i'm supposed to because I get tired and frustrated at times. I pay for it, but it's my choice and it's nice to feel not restricted at times.
When I post my adventure, I would appreciate it if you take the time to read it. My friend did more this trip and even put up with me at times when I would get frustrated at the roads, haha.
I know my medicine impacts me and I do know that I struggle REALLY hard internally at times. Its a true testament of will power sometimes and I admit I lose it sometimes.
My dad told me a story on his first trip to Moab. Him and his girl-friend were out on a trail and saw this guy in the rig and a girl outside of it. He started to get upset at the guy and as he approached the guy said, I'm a quadriplegic. Both my dad and myself worked with people who have disabilities with a company called Horses for the Physically Challenged. Did that for over 10 years and learned a lot. My dad by no means was mad about the disability more about the guy making his wife get out in the weather =). He ended up helping them and getting them through the trail together. They even did some more trails together over the next few days. I've been living with this for awhile, my dad still struggles with it and I live with him at the current time. It's difficult to learn and adjust with and my ex left me partly due to my disability..so their are times that I struggle with it and feel mentally drain and depressed.
Thank you very much for your words. If I see you on the trails or vice versa, we will be sure to help each other! =)
Thanks, its amazing how little it can take to cause pain and issues. Take it easy and try everything to get it fixed. I've tried a lot of different options, tables, shocks, etc, etc, etc. Don't give up and be patient. Getting that twinge on the inversion table is scary, I know and respect you using the table. I tried it a few times and couldn't do it. When laying down, legs don't work and to much just escalates.
Thank you for the wonderful words and keep your head up. Take it easy and if they say you may have to adjust your life or it's going to happen again, they aren't fibbing =(.
This community..
I'm amazed at how awesome this community is. I appreciate all the wonderful words and thoughts. It's amazing how much this community supports each other, regardless of anything.
Our trip started on Sunday.
Everything was loaded and on the road before 8am. We traveled down I5 to 58 to 97 down to Dorris, CA. Filled up at a little tiny gas station as my father called over the CB, "I can't believe I'm paying 1.00 more to pump my own gas when 30 miles ago it was a dollar less and they did it for me...". I laughed at this. We were at the start of the trail by 2pm and decided we would at least drive every day up to 6pm. Day started with non dusty roads and mud puddles.
I hadn't been on this section before and our last time we did this, we saw NO ONE, not a soul except on the main roads when we had to jump on between area's and fuel. In the first 5 minutes we ran across 3 vehicles going the other direction. I noticed none of the vehicles had gear in it and was slightly confused but oh well. Got to a point of where we could over see the Klamath River. I've never been this far south and central(been down I5 a fair amount) so it was new to me. Beautiful sights and a long way down to the river from up on top of this ridge..
Continued till we got to about 6pm and I lost my vote on camping in a real campground 2v1 and we stayed here..
This is when my dad finally tells us he's not had fifth gear since Klamath Falls, OR and it's been making a horrible noise.
So we dig around and find ONE quart of gear oil and realized I don't carry one so I will now be carrying one. So we use a 5 Gallon bucket with a cloth rag over it and drain it. He has twin sticks and so has a different setup than the 'standard' manual shifting. As we drain the first part a piece of metal about the size of a nickle comes out. The drain plug also has a fair amount of metal pieces on it also. Not sure why we never got a picture of all of it... We sleep through the night and get up at 530am and start working on it again. We use the ONE quart of good gear oil and put it in. We use the 5 gallon bucket with the cloth filtered out and put it back in. We somehow have MORE gear oil than we removed, unsure how this happened. Ended up with an extra almost 1 quart of EXTRA gear oil even after refilling the NEW one that was put in on-top of everything.
So next day after everything we continue the journey with some possible dad peeling off or making a few phone calls. No store is with-in 100 miles to buy more gear oil and come to find out he's been having these kind of metal pieces for over a year../me sighs.
Next day took us up past some nice area's in Ashland and found a lost Toyota in its natural drunk/stolen habitat??
We saw tracks that looked to be missing it and sliding down the hill over a 10' rock wall and landing by tree's. We looked to make sure no one was hurt or anything, but it appeared to be possibly hot wired and smelled like someone spilled a keg inside. We could tell that it happened in the last few hours, or maybe that previous night. It was an awesome road and was pretty much almost 2500' climb in 3 miles zig zagging back. I was in L and the temp's stayed around 190'ish.
I couldn't imagine doing this with 6" of snow and I have it on dash cam but need to edit it as the language isn't suitable for all audiences. Found a great place to camp and the Toyota pick-up was still doing great. I was happy with how my 4Runner was doing and we slept at a place in the middle of the forest again. So far the weather was sunny and about 80's during the day, 40's at night. Near our location was a look-out to Crater Lake Caldera. So far we had averaged about 100 miles a day, minus the first day was 265 miles on road and 60 on dirt/gravel/?????
To get to this look-out area, we had to cut a few tree's that had fallen over the road and do some minor rock crawling. Luckily I was hopped up on medicine so I dealt with it as I try to do what others would like to do. We continued on after this and hadn't seen anyone like we had on the previous day. We actually made it to Prospect, OR for fuel, gear oil, oil and BEER! Continuing on we swung out at stopped by Rogue Natural Bridge my co--pilot/friend had not been to yet.
I don't know what it was, but compared to our last overland trip we seemed to be making HUGE progress on our everyday mileage. We saw lots of tree's down and did our fair share of trail maintenance and cutting of trees. My friend LOVES to cut tree's so he enjoyed it a lot. We stopped by a lone stream and decided to take a bath/shower. I think it had to be 39 degree's maybe. Also stopped by Natural Falls and did the 1/2 mile walk down, dumb move on my part, but did it for my co-pilot friend. After that we continued on and things were just going great for distance. We were about 6000 feet in elevation and we started seeing snow. So far it was just in the shade and the tree's. Than we saw some on the road.
I was the one in white, my dad was in red and my friend was taking the pictures. Needless to say we ran across a freaking TON of snow. I buried it to the frame rails and broke a strap. It was easily 4-6' of snow, maybe more. It took us 4 hours to go 1/2 mile and it was kicking our butt's. The little Toyota with transmission problems was working its but off.
Here is him winching himself after he buried to the axles and I'm winching off of him. At this point we were tired, frustrated, in pain and decided we would get to the first part of the road or area that had NO SNOW and camp.
So, we ate a quick dinner and got ready for bed. Our plan was to get up really early and hopefully the snow would be frozen. We know we had at least another 1/4 to 1/2mile of snow to get through before we would be off the top of this area. We all woke up around 5am, broke camp and was off driving about 630/7am. It was crazy how we litterally were driving on top of the snow versus sinking in. It only got down to 40 overnight, but it worked. Continuing on we saw some more neat places and I sat in the car at the Edison Ice Caves since I shouldn't be walking anymore. So I had 3 hour car sit, and my friend, dad went to go splunking. They had a blast but I knew it would be bad if I went. We continued on and were about 50 miles from finishing the route and spent 4 hours trying to go 2 miles because they decided the offroad community/quad/Dirt bikes were no longer important and close all the trails between Cascade Lake Highway and Skyline road to Tumalo Falls. We took the detour through Bend, OR and started heading up to Three Creek Lake. Did the 3500' change in elevation again and was above 6800' and never saw snow like we did two days previous. We were all really nervous because a guy down at Tumalo Falls had told my dad that his buddy was stuck up in the snow on the top of the mountain(where we were going) and he over heated trying to get to him(he was driving a jeep). So as we were driving, we kept getting more nervous but never once saw snow. I finally got my win and we camped in a campground that night. Little did I know that we wouldn't make it past 8pm..
As we got ready for bed the wind picket up and we could see it was going to rain or snow. I took my nighttime medicine and all of a sudden the wind went up to about 50 to 65 mph sustained. Our tents were on their side it was that bad. It than started to rain and the temperature was dropping fast. It was 55 when we pulled in and was 42 when I was getting ready for bed. We couldn't even do much in the wind so we pulled up stakes and threw it all in the 4Runner and the little Toyota and headed out. It was by far the worse conditions I've ever camped in, EVER.
I appreciate EVERYONE's love and support, this community is the best by FAR.
I'm amazed at how awesome this community is. I appreciate all the wonderful words and thoughts. It's amazing how much this community supports each other, regardless of anything.
Our trip started on Sunday.
Everything was loaded and on the road before 8am. We traveled down I5 to 58 to 97 down to Dorris, CA. Filled up at a little tiny gas station as my father called over the CB, "I can't believe I'm paying 1.00 more to pump my own gas when 30 miles ago it was a dollar less and they did it for me...". I laughed at this. We were at the start of the trail by 2pm and decided we would at least drive every day up to 6pm. Day started with non dusty roads and mud puddles.
I hadn't been on this section before and our last time we did this, we saw NO ONE, not a soul except on the main roads when we had to jump on between area's and fuel. In the first 5 minutes we ran across 3 vehicles going the other direction. I noticed none of the vehicles had gear in it and was slightly confused but oh well. Got to a point of where we could over see the Klamath River. I've never been this far south and central(been down I5 a fair amount) so it was new to me. Beautiful sights and a long way down to the river from up on top of this ridge..
Continued till we got to about 6pm and I lost my vote on camping in a real campground 2v1 and we stayed here..
This is when my dad finally tells us he's not had fifth gear since Klamath Falls, OR and it's been making a horrible noise.
So we dig around and find ONE quart of gear oil and realized I don't carry one so I will now be carrying one. So we use a 5 Gallon bucket with a cloth rag over it and drain it. He has twin sticks and so has a different setup than the 'standard' manual shifting. As we drain the first part a piece of metal about the size of a nickle comes out. The drain plug also has a fair amount of metal pieces on it also. Not sure why we never got a picture of all of it... We sleep through the night and get up at 530am and start working on it again. We use the ONE quart of good gear oil and put it in. We use the 5 gallon bucket with the cloth filtered out and put it back in. We somehow have MORE gear oil than we removed, unsure how this happened. Ended up with an extra almost 1 quart of EXTRA gear oil even after refilling the NEW one that was put in on-top of everything.
So next day after everything we continue the journey with some possible dad peeling off or making a few phone calls. No store is with-in 100 miles to buy more gear oil and come to find out he's been having these kind of metal pieces for over a year../me sighs.
Next day took us up past some nice area's in Ashland and found a lost Toyota in its natural drunk/stolen habitat??
We saw tracks that looked to be missing it and sliding down the hill over a 10' rock wall and landing by tree's. We looked to make sure no one was hurt or anything, but it appeared to be possibly hot wired and smelled like someone spilled a keg inside. We could tell that it happened in the last few hours, or maybe that previous night. It was an awesome road and was pretty much almost 2500' climb in 3 miles zig zagging back. I was in L and the temp's stayed around 190'ish.
I couldn't imagine doing this with 6" of snow and I have it on dash cam but need to edit it as the language isn't suitable for all audiences. Found a great place to camp and the Toyota pick-up was still doing great. I was happy with how my 4Runner was doing and we slept at a place in the middle of the forest again. So far the weather was sunny and about 80's during the day, 40's at night. Near our location was a look-out to Crater Lake Caldera. So far we had averaged about 100 miles a day, minus the first day was 265 miles on road and 60 on dirt/gravel/?????
To get to this look-out area, we had to cut a few tree's that had fallen over the road and do some minor rock crawling. Luckily I was hopped up on medicine so I dealt with it as I try to do what others would like to do. We continued on after this and hadn't seen anyone like we had on the previous day. We actually made it to Prospect, OR for fuel, gear oil, oil and BEER! Continuing on we swung out at stopped by Rogue Natural Bridge my co--pilot/friend had not been to yet.
I don't know what it was, but compared to our last overland trip we seemed to be making HUGE progress on our everyday mileage. We saw lots of tree's down and did our fair share of trail maintenance and cutting of trees. My friend LOVES to cut tree's so he enjoyed it a lot. We stopped by a lone stream and decided to take a bath/shower. I think it had to be 39 degree's maybe. Also stopped by Natural Falls and did the 1/2 mile walk down, dumb move on my part, but did it for my co-pilot friend. After that we continued on and things were just going great for distance. We were about 6000 feet in elevation and we started seeing snow. So far it was just in the shade and the tree's. Than we saw some on the road.
I was the one in white, my dad was in red and my friend was taking the pictures. Needless to say we ran across a freaking TON of snow. I buried it to the frame rails and broke a strap. It was easily 4-6' of snow, maybe more. It took us 4 hours to go 1/2 mile and it was kicking our butt's. The little Toyota with transmission problems was working its but off.
Here is him winching himself after he buried to the axles and I'm winching off of him. At this point we were tired, frustrated, in pain and decided we would get to the first part of the road or area that had NO SNOW and camp.
So, we ate a quick dinner and got ready for bed. Our plan was to get up really early and hopefully the snow would be frozen. We know we had at least another 1/4 to 1/2mile of snow to get through before we would be off the top of this area. We all woke up around 5am, broke camp and was off driving about 630/7am. It was crazy how we litterally were driving on top of the snow versus sinking in. It only got down to 40 overnight, but it worked. Continuing on we saw some more neat places and I sat in the car at the Edison Ice Caves since I shouldn't be walking anymore. So I had 3 hour car sit, and my friend, dad went to go splunking. They had a blast but I knew it would be bad if I went. We continued on and were about 50 miles from finishing the route and spent 4 hours trying to go 2 miles because they decided the offroad community/quad/Dirt bikes were no longer important and close all the trails between Cascade Lake Highway and Skyline road to Tumalo Falls. We took the detour through Bend, OR and started heading up to Three Creek Lake. Did the 3500' change in elevation again and was above 6800' and never saw snow like we did two days previous. We were all really nervous because a guy down at Tumalo Falls had told my dad that his buddy was stuck up in the snow on the top of the mountain(where we were going) and he over heated trying to get to him(he was driving a jeep). So as we were driving, we kept getting more nervous but never once saw snow. I finally got my win and we camped in a campground that night. Little did I know that we wouldn't make it past 8pm..
As we got ready for bed the wind picket up and we could see it was going to rain or snow. I took my nighttime medicine and all of a sudden the wind went up to about 50 to 65 mph sustained. Our tents were on their side it was that bad. It than started to rain and the temperature was dropping fast. It was 55 when we pulled in and was 42 when I was getting ready for bed. We couldn't even do much in the wind so we pulled up stakes and threw it all in the 4Runner and the little Toyota and headed out. It was by far the worse conditions I've ever camped in, EVER.
I appreciate EVERYONE's love and support, this community is the best by FAR.
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Did some more work on the 4runner over the weekend, one day of easy work left me chasing medicine for the rest of the weekend. I will post pictures but finished wiring my led toyota emblem in the front, led lighting for my underbody and led flag for my trip next week. I really liked how it looks and when is night time I'll post a picture.
Started my body work for some areas that needed cleanup. I'll be practicing my bondo / paint learning on my father's "half doors" for his toyota.
Started my body work for some areas that needed cleanup. I'll be practicing my bondo / paint learning on my father's "half doors" for his toyota.
Dunefest 2016 - or Bust
So slowly gathering items for my Dunefest Trip and realized this will be the first tim'e i'm going camping by myself(with friends who understand my condition and support it). I'm super excited to hit the road and go just relax and have some fun as it will be my last trip for awhile. Since we have good service i'll be posting pictures (reminded me I need to pack the camera), and i'll take pictures of my PDU and lighting I did last week.
If any 3rd genners are going to Dunefest (Winchester bay, OR), let me know would love to come say hi =)
So slowly gathering items for my Dunefest Trip and realized this will be the first tim'e i'm going camping by myself(with friends who understand my condition and support it). I'm super excited to hit the road and go just relax and have some fun as it will be my last trip for awhile. Since we have good service i'll be posting pictures (reminded me I need to pack the camera), and i'll take pictures of my PDU and lighting I did last week.
If any 3rd genners are going to Dunefest (Winchester bay, OR), let me know would love to come say hi =)
So after talking with my dad and my limitations I am working on slowly making my rig more explorationable. Now this will probably be months in the making unless I get my dad suckered in,lol. I'm starting with making my rear tailgate cover secured. I currently don't have a real tire (hilift) for my vehicle except when I have my roof rack. I'm going to weld some tabs on my tonneau bracket to mount it and it will now be secured. I also am trying to relocate my spare tire for a variety of reasons. One being it takes me 10 minutes to get up if i lay on the ground so if I had it on a swing away..I wouldn't be so bad. Now of course when I go, I always have a Co pilot who understands me and will do ALL my manual labor, for the price of a trip and drinks.
My swing away will be attached to my metal rear bumper and also two jerry cans. I want to do something with where the tire was and not sure yet what to do..
Here is what Im thinking of doing, let me know your opinions, thanks you.
Couldn't sleep and I only had this rear picture..haha I'll do a way more detailed soon.
My swing away will be attached to my metal rear bumper and also two jerry cans. I want to do something with where the tire was and not sure yet what to do..
Here is what Im thinking of doing, let me know your opinions, thanks you.
Couldn't sleep and I only had this rear picture..haha I'll do a way more detailed soon.
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Did some sketching as my son and I were laying down ..
View attachment 215092
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Thanks bud. I'm truly sorry. I just had a wrist surgery. And fml does it hurt. Unfortunately I'm really thankful that the doctor who did my fussion happen to be the professor of the hospital and has won awards for his work. So I really really had Angels by me. I've been in therapy for 6 months.
I wish nothing but the best for you man. Pm me If you ever wanna discuss or talk
Thanks, I looked at their swing away kits. Figure for about 350 in material I(mydad) could do it. What did it cost? My big concern is due to my design, I have to setup my pivot slightly angled with almost 60" out to the otherside. It's beautiful in my head,drawing,but could I make it look that way, lol.
Thank you, I appreciate it and I may. Been a real struggle as I switch insurances and back log of ohp had me pay for my medicine out of n pocket. Just my morphine and oxy was 372.89. I can't do.my other three as its another 400 and change, need insurance to get finished damnit.
My few things going for me is my 4runner,my son and getting out to areas where I don't feel crippled because my 4runner can get me there. Hopefully therapy is fast and things rebound quick!
