First you lie there, hoping the pain will subside; then you just lie there quietly, then you learn to roll over, to sit, to stand, and finally to walk. It is like being a baby all over again, but this time every movement, every action, is conscious.
In April, 2006, I suffered a spinal cord injury (SCI). It was the result of a couple of congenital defects: Stenosis and disc degeneration. I like to think of what happened as simply an act of God.
These pages are devoted principally to documenting my recovery — it may help others in a similar state, or others trying to cope with life-changing tests.
Some may wonder at the title, Julian’s Progress. I chose it because it is reminiscent of the book Pilgrim’s Progress, which relates the spiritual progress of a believer. I see recovery from the SCI as both a spiritual and a material journey.
Please feel free to leave comments either here, or on individual blog entries. You may also reach me at the following address: julian at lebensold dot ca
Lorol and Marion Finley :
Date: February 10, 2010 @ 6:51 am
Dear Julian:
It is great to witness the progress you have made and are still making. In the “Poster Boy” photo you look positively svelte! That you may now walk so much, use the locker room in the gym, and work full-time are elegant testimonies of the real progress that you, with Suzanne’s patient and loving support, have been able to make, with, as I am sure, a great deal of blood, sweat and tears.
With prayers and best wishes for continued progress!
Lorol and Marion
Finley
SIRUS HOMAYUN :
Date: February 2, 2010 @ 8:24 pm
Dear Julian, it is a happy and a great feeling for me to be informed of your health and enjoy reading differnt comments about you.
I hope to see you and to greet you in person soon. Love to all . Sirus
sussan and Ron Bays and family :
Date: January 31, 2010 @ 2:03 pm
Dear Julian,
It has been just over a year since we saw you on Pilgrimage. We are happy to see you are doing so well. Please give our best to everyone.
Sussan and Ron
SIRUS HOMAYUN :
Date: November 16, 2009 @ 10:34 pm
DEAR JULIAN
I AM VERY GLAD THAT YOU ARE CONTINUING YOUR ACTIVITIES AND WITH YOUR AMASING WILL POWER,AND PERSEVERANCE FULFILING YOUR GOALS,AND PERFORMING YOUR DUTIES.
LOVE FROM ALL OF US SIRUS
josian :
Date: November 12, 2009 @ 10:48 am
just to be your friends is wonderful
your faith is a lesson to me
love u
jo
Carlo Dell'Elce :
Date: June 5, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
Julian,
I see you occasionally working out at the Y and am truly inspired by your focus, determination, and unrelenting will to overcome your spinal cord injury.
I wish you a complete recovery before long!!!
Carlo
gail shep :
Date: May 4, 2009 @ 8:25 am
Always thinking of you Julian. a true fighting solder. mind over body. yeah! spirit is so much stronger….hugs, x
thanks Susanne for being his solder in arms.
Stéphane, France and the kids :
Date: May 4, 2009 @ 2:54 am
Bonjour Julian,
We want to add our congradulation for your “fast” progress. We say fast because looking from the type of challenges that you had to face it is. We will continue to accompany your spiritual and your phisical journey with our prayers.
Love,appreciation to you and to all of those that helped you along the way.
The Bertrand-Gilson family
Bruce Filson & Margaret Bremner :
Date: August 11, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
Julian,
Margaret & I are deeply moved and inspired, but somehow not surprised, as we follow the remarkable and outstanding developments in your physical rehabilitation. How well we remember your unique rational soul, your quietly indomitable spirit, and the quality of devotion and excellence in all things that both you and Suzanne demonstrate in the Cause of God.
How sweet it is to remember those cherished years with you in Montreal! Once, as I was listening to loud music in our apartment below 1548 ave. des pins, oblivious to the world, having failed to hear you ring the doorbell, I suddenly saw you dancing (sort of) in my living room doorway with a grin on your face. That’s the Julian I always see and love when I think of you.
Your inspiration is valuable to our own work as Margaret & I return to China for a second year,
Loving greetings,
Bruce & Margaret
Sirus Homayun :
Date: August 7, 2008 @ 8:58 pm
Dear Julian
It is wonderful to see your determination ,will power and progress.So glad you have improved so well and we are happy to read about your physical improvement.
Love from all of us. Sirus
Navid :
Date: May 23, 2008 @ 9:11 am
Dear Julian,
It is great to see you back on your feet again. Thank you for sharing your progress. You are an inspiration to us. My prayers are with you.
love,
Navid
Gloriajean Murpphy :
Date: May 21, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
Wonderful to see the progress. The videos really show how steady your gait has become. I can see the difference it makes to be using a walker having graduated from the wheelchair. Canes and crutches mark your journey back to wellness. Way to go.
Gloriajean
Sirus Homayun :
Date: May 20, 2008 @ 8:59 pm
Dear Julian
I am happy that with your determination and spiritual power
you have achived such amasing progress,a good example for all of us
With our love
Sirus and the family
T.Radhakrishnan :
Date: April 23, 2008 @ 6:39 pm
My Dear Julian,
Your experience is a testimony of Faith and perseverance. As sufferers of diseases and accidents our job is to endure and hold on to whatever faith we can generate. The results of our faith and prayers are God given. Your writings, no doubt will help many in distress, including me, to know that we are not alone in this world. Our ill-fate as sometimes one may consider it as, is not necessarily the only one in this world, nor is the worst of all.
May God Bless you.
Radhakrishnan
Debbie vd H :
Date: March 17, 2008 @ 8:49 am
Dear Julian:
I just saw the new pictures and video or your walk from the Shrine. It brought tears to my eyes to see your quick walk back to the car.
Our warmest love and wishes are with you for a wonderful Naw-ruz. We hope to see you soon.
Sirus Homayun :
Date: February 26, 2008 @ 11:12 pm
Dear Julian.
I visited Roxanne in january and we went to 9 days pilgrimage together.
We had a wonderful time and you and your dear family were in our mind with special prayers for your health and good recovery.
It is always good to read your e mails and learn aboutyour health.
Love to your family. Sirus
Wanda Naimi :
Date: February 26, 2008 @ 9:51 am
Dear Julian,
Our prayer and thought are with you. Give me regard to Suzanne and the family.
Love hearing from you
Wanda
Sia Samimi :
Date: February 26, 2008 @ 12:29 am
Dear Julain, rest assured of our prayers for you and family. I marvel technology at times like this, when loved ones can get connected with each other.
I admire you, your courage, and your willingless to share your journey with those who love you.
Hugs,
Sia
Ashley I Naimi :
Date: February 25, 2008 @ 8:37 pm
Hey Julian! I met up with Esther at Julie and Fanfan’s home here in Ottawa. Heard that you were making some great progress, and the video confirms it!
Please give my regards to Suzanne, and say hello to Jonathan for us (Alea too).
Hope these videos keep coming,
ashley
Helen & Maury :
Date: February 3, 2008 @ 12:11 am
Dearest Julian and Suzanne,
We are so humbled by your combined perseverance in the face of this mammoth task. You’ve just made the impossible possible! There is only one place such resilience can come from. We all join in thanking the Creator for giving you the courage to take this on and succeed; and all of that with good humour besides. We’re cheering you on, every step of the way, while being thankful to witness the journey.
Sending much love your way,
Helen & Maury
maria chouchtari :
Date: February 2, 2008 @ 6:05 pm
You inspire me.
How does one measure progress?
Is it in footsteps? inch by inch,mile by mile, from strength to love, from discouragement to encouragement, to the dawning of THE TRIALS OF EACH new day, a view of a moving picture, that’s you moving..
growing in strength, reliving, finding new friends, and writing new blogs. Is this an experience to teach us caring?
Making us see miracles in the making.
Teaching us the same truth often heard but less practiced,
as you have faith, so shall your powers and blessing be…you have just put that into moving motion,inspiring us all, as we trip and fall in our own footsteps, when faith is not totally present, and we slip behind, while clinging to the hope of a fuller MORE MEANINGFUL life.
We ask ourselves, is the effort really worth it?
Here is the living proof.
You are the epitome of the proven truth that there is a real gain in the effort of trying, over and over again. Never failing..never giving up.
Jim Ferguson :
Date: January 26, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
Julian……so wonderful to reconnect with you after all these years. I will pass on news of your progress to my wife Deborah and to my folks…Karin & Ian Ferguson who are now located in Leduc, Alberta.
Lots of love and prayers my friend.
Peace,
Jim Ferguson
Sirus Homayun :
Date: January 14, 2008 @ 11:48 pm
DearJulian,
We are very happy to read your progress report,which for us is a learning lesson of Faith,Trust,Perseverance,Hope progress and achievement.
Day after tomorrow,wednesday 16th of January,I willtravel to Check Republique to see my daughter Roxanne who has pioneered for one year to teach as a volunteer in their Baha’I School for one year and we go to Haifa and We wiil pray for you in the Holy Shrines My best regards to all member of your dear family With our love Sirus
Shahla and Ron Stee :
Date: January 14, 2008 @ 12:48 am
Dear Suzanne and Julian,
It was good to see you last summer.
We still think of you as our children and as such you are in our heart and our prayers.
Keep well and be happy.
Looking forward to seeing you again this summer.
Love, OOs ans XXs,
Shahla ans Ron
David Jacobs :
Date: January 14, 2008 @ 12:18 am
Well, one of my favourite sages, Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz and founded a religion-positive school of psychiatry, says that humans are happy to the extent that they have a sense of purpose in life.
Each human must find her or his own sense of purpose, we cannot give a sense of purpose one to another.
He further says that a sense of purpose can come in any one of any combination of three broad areas, the creative, the experiential and the attitudinal.
Julian, having known you since 1961, I have known you to be intelligent and exploratory by nature.
Suzanne, having known you since I would guess around 1969, you have been unfailingly both intelligent, artistic and spritual in your approach to life.
From what I see and read, you have taken the adversities that life has given you and created in a sense a new you, each of you. The temptation, for so many in these situations, is to lapse into games of Poor Me or Wooden Leg (see Eric Berne’s Games People Play). It is honestly reassuring to know people who can arise to the vicissitudes of life.
Lorol and Marion Finley :
Date: January 13, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
Dear Suzanne and Julian:
This latest version of your site (Sunday, 2008-01-13) is most impressive indeed and the sight of Julian walking with crutches on his own steam down the hall to the living room another confirmation of the impression we had when we first saw him in the ICU. It seems that you, Julian, have been favoured with such a glance as the Master mentiones in one of His prayers, “…, with a glance He healeth a hundred thousand incurable ills, … .” Please be assured of our continued prayers for
your continued progess and for the welfare of all of your family.
With warmest greetings to both of you.
Lorol and Marion
finley@gol.com
lorol@gol.com
Anne Skeaff :
Date: January 13, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
Dear Julian,
You know, this spiritual journey you have been and still are on is not only yours. It is mine too. When you share your progress, I get to have access to the wisdom that you cultivate. To watch your faith and reliance on divine assistance grow as well as your determination to vigilantly physically work towards forward progree is quite the inspiration. And the bonus too is the radiance that shines from your face in spite of the challenge. I think these results are proof of your attitude and faith.
Thank you Julian for helping us all.
With admiration and learning,
Anne
Léon :
Date: December 18, 2007 @ 11:20 am
Thanks to you, Julian,
I get to read Maria’s poem. You physical suffering brings spiritual healing to you and to others…
I asked the Bab this morning
to speak to me and make me understand my calamities. This sequence of her poem is divine for my soul!
“Part of you slows down so that the rest of you can accelerate,
Something is gained in the loss
Something is purified and transformed
Nothings comes from nothing
so something you did,
was something good
You must have done something good.
You are progressing at a higher level.”
My wife, whose name is Maria also, left me, and I thought I did something wrong when I did something good, loving the Beloved and His Cause. Thank you, dear Maria, for you are saying what the one who left cannot say! The Bab chose you (plus having the same name) to speak to me.
Lorol and Marion Finley :
Date: December 17, 2007 @ 5:40 pm
Greetings Julian:
When we saw you in the Intensive Care Unit at the Montreal General, we could feel the presence of the divine protection surrounding you. I immediately felt that you would conquer your condition. You may not remember this, but you stated that the recovery would be done “dan-dan,” step by step. I was amazed that you remembered that phrase from you brief stint at Asahi University in Japan. Now, over a year later, we see how the “dan”, the steps, are adding up and it was great to see you walking with the crutches. You look extremely well and trim. Keep up the good work!
Be assured of our continued prayers for your complete rehabilitation.
With warmest greetings to you and Suzanne,
Lorol and Marion
Finley
maria chouchtari :
Date: December 17, 2007 @ 1:41 am
Inspiration
When your legs cannot walk
Your wings fly
Your soul is lifted to higher levels
Your brain is sharpended by endured sufferings,
Your intellect is refined
your Vision is Higher
Your sense of reality enlarged
Your capacity for compassion broadened
Your journey is one of a kind
Yours eyes are sharp
Your hearing and listening even sharper
Part of you slows down so that the rest of you can accelerate,
Something is gained in the loss
Something is purified and transformed
Nothings comes from nothing
so something you did,
was something good
You must have done something good.
You are progressing at a higher level.
The legs will take time to catch up,,
Take Flight while here …
Your spirit is very strong
hugs
maria