It's almost funny... the stronger I get the harder everything sometimes seems.
I was an absolute, sweaty, breathless mess when I carefully and exhaustedly made my way out from Physio today. My mind totally gets that as my legs strengthen and learn, my body needs to push harder and demand more... but my body still sometimes wants to just shut down and give up from the pain of rebuilding. It's a constant catch-22 but I'm making certain it's always the work that wins, even if I sometimes have to rest in between for a minute or two.
Speaking of taking rests, I hardly took any today during our session, at all! We started at the stairs once again today, with a new challenge that I hadn't seen coming but began dreading the moment Julie explained to me the plan... we would be climbing all the way to the second floor with no stopping in between stair flights, straight up one flight then turning/manoeuvring across the landing (holding to the wall) before moving straight up the second flight..... eeeeeeep! I did the only thing I could do - I took a deep breath and began up those dratted stairs with one hand on the railing and the other settled nervously upon my hip. Julie had brought along and placed a chair on the landing in case I couldn't manage the whole way without a break or got too nervous and wore myself out but once I had started, I didn't want to break stride even though that chair, at times, did look pretty incredibly inviting. I felt too close to tears for comfort when we had reached the top after our slow and concentrated climb and when I leaned back against the wall for a little rest before heading back down I felt a whole rush of pride overtaking me. There was bright sunshine beams shining through the windowed doors on either side of the stairwell we stood in... I had finally made it to the sunshine instead of just the darkened landing between two floors! Going down the stairs is a little easier than going up for me, still when we reached the bottom, I was needing to sit for a quick moment. I know I said I didn't rest very much today and now here I am already talking about taking a rest but only weeks ago my stair endeavours went like this... 1 flight up, rest for 3-5 minutes, 1 flight down, rest for 3-5 minutes, and repeat with longer rests as I tired out. So today, basically I did 2 flights up, rest for 2 minutes, 2 flights down, rest for 1 minute. Improvement galore! Anyhow, we made it all the way up to the second floor and all the way back down TWICE!!!
I was already sweltering and breathing heavily when we started back to the neuro gym for yet another new challenge... the recumbent bike.
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| The Recumbent Bicycle which forces the legs to work all on their own is brutally and excruciatingly more difficult than the Nu-Step below... |
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| I thought I'd been doing well on the Nu-Step but I quickly learned I had been greatly compensating by using my arms instead of my legs while using this machine... I feel like such a fraud!!! :/ |
I'm sure you've heard the expression 'just like riding a bike...' but let me just say, that expression just no longer holds much water for me. Because my legs did forget how to ride a bike. I can't even begin to describe the difficulty my brain and body had in forcing my legs to turn those damned pedals. I should, first of all explain that I couldn't even get my own feet up and strapped into those pedals, Julie had to help me and she also helped me figure out the push movements... push hard against the pedal to force one leg straight while keeping the other foot pressed against the opposite pedal so my foot would not fall out of the straps then follow the pedalling motion through... Sounded easy enough, it really did, but it was honestly SO horribly hard and painful that even my brain felt pain... and brains apparently don't even feel pain! It was a constant battle to make my legs move those pedals and the amount of concentration it took of me was almost unbearable. I couldn't focus on counting because of the focus just the movements demanded of me but if I accomplished 22 rotations in my 15 minutes on the bike... I would be happily amazed! It really was that much of a struggle.
It took me a couple of minutes of rest to catch my breath and rehydrate with a few sips of water before we moved on to our final task for the day... quad cane time.
First, it was mirror-walk time to concentrate on watching my body move and correcting for proper walking posture as well as movement. I'm pretty sure I mentioned before just how much I despise mirror-time but, I'd have preferred mirror-time over what came next in a heartbeat... HALLWAY-time....... "Please God, don't let anybody I know happen down this hallway while I'm trying to figure out walking steps with this embarrassing quad cane and my therapist holding tight to the safety belt cinched around my ribcage! Please God, help me move quickly so I can get through this quickly! Please, God, make it all just really not be happening! Please God, just... hide me completely....." I was so shaky and so tense with nervousness, humiliation and flat-out fear that I almost felt I would faint. But I didn't faint. I concentrated all my attention on the movements I needed to make to get through this part so I could just go home and hide away again. People passed in the hallway as we went, I could hear the footsteps slowing as they approached us, I could see pant-legs and shoes as they tip-toed past us when it was safe. It made me even more nervous and ashamed in knowing I had caused a few momentary slow-downs but I didn't stop... Julie kept saying, "It's okay... keep going... we'll just use the distraction as part of moving forward... take your time and concentrate..." Now, I really do know, in my mind, that I shouldn't be embarrassed about working hard to try to heal a teach my legs to walk again but pride is not proving to be easy for me to overcome. I don't want to be seen with a cane. I don't want to be seen struggling. I don't want to be seen like this. I have people telling me all the time that it's no big deal, or saying who cares what anyone else thinks, or saying I have to get out and do things because nobody cares anyhow... the point is, I care! I'm guilty of it, too, but I never will be again, that much I can tell you for certain. My Granny used to get so embarrassed when I had to help her once she was unable to get up and down or even dressed on her own and I would brush it off, "Don't pay it any mind, Gran, it's not a big deal!" I would tell her. Only now I know, what a big deal it was for her. I will never again react with anything other than compassion of true understanding for others feelings of despair and humiliation in learning to deal with special circumstances. I know that people mean well in brushing off the mortification that sometimes sneaks up but it's just not something that is always a feat of simple to do. I don't know if anyone I know saw me in that hallway, nor do I want to know. What I do know... I made it all the way to the end and back to the neuro gym with an accomplished feeling of pride that help to push away my prior embarrassment as I switched back to walker-mode and headed out to catch my ride home.
Physiotherapy - Appointment 22: (August 26, 2016.)
My legs are growing STRONGER... even if they do still ignore my brains commands at times. I'll take it!!!
Today, I made it all the way up to the landing between the second and third floors of the hospital. It was slow, concentrated work as I painstakingly demanded of myself to climb aaaaand control my legs from involuntarily wobbling as I tried my hardest to lift and place my feet onto each next step without pause. Lifting and placing is a struggle but my body is finally responding to the proper movements once again. This gives me grand hope that I will soon be back to my regular old self. Twice up and down those stairs we went before heading back to the neuro gym for quad cane practice.
The cane has proven to be too much for my brain to deal with... and I can't say I am disappointed this is the case. We tried with the quad cane but I just couldn't get the benefit of its aid because when I concentrated on making my legs move properly, my mind forgot about the cane... and when I concentrated on moving the cane properly, my mind was busy and couldn't remind my legs how to properly move. I almost fell a few times and was, for once, grateful for Julie and the safety belt save that kept me from ending up on the floor. We tried a single-foot cane just to see if it might be easier but it was even worse in the throwing-me-off department.
New tactic... walking without a walking aid, well, except for the safety belt holding me steady. I was TERRIFIED!!! We first tried walking where I was close enough to reach out for the therapy table to steady myself if need be but I wasn't allowed to hold on to it except in feeling of emergency. Julie assured me my legs were strong enough to hold me and that I would not fall; I had to trust her. I had to trust my legs. And my legs really were strong enough. I said a quick quiet prayer and then tried to make my first step. I tried, but I couldn't move. I didn't know how to get started and the more I tried the more rocked back and forth which caused me to almost fall. Just as I started to panic, Julie reminded me to shift my weight to one side before lifting my opposite foot forward. A simple, natural movement that I know should come easily but it took a LOT of concentration to make it happen. But it did happen, and after a couple of tries in front of the mirror it was time to try in the hallway. I've talked about the hallways before and it's always a NOT fun space for me... I don't like feeling so exposed in my struggles but as much as I dislike it, it's also probably good for me in a way. The hallway is thirty-six meters long and feels as well as looks like it'll take forever to walk once down and back to the gym again. It took me almost twenty minutes to walk what I see other people walking in only a matter of seconds which was a might disheartening. However, it was incredibly invigorating to know that I was taking each carefully concentrated step on only my own two legs! Re-learning to weight-shift at the same time as forward movement needs to happen hasn't been an easy time but it is getting easier. Julie keeps telling me that she's not worried about how slow I am because speed is the easy part... the proper movement takes time but once it again becomes muscle-movement memory, the speed will come. So, I'm not going to worry either. I'm just going to keep on working at healing.
The last thing I did for the day was ten minutes on the Nu-Step machine and I wasn't even wobbly once I had finished!
Things are looking up... maybe I'll even be able to ski again this winter!
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