I got to the wellness center early to ride the stim bike. I always attach all the electrodes and wires, then manually move my legs a cycle or two to make sure I'm close enough to the bike before I put the brakes on. Mom moved my legs a couple cycles and then I kept that motion going for another cycle- completely on my own! The machine wasn't even turned on yet. I rode the bike for an hour and my average power was 2.8W (it has only been about 1.5!)...so almost double what it's been!
While I was biking, I met a woman in her late 60s/early 70s. She was using the bike next to me for her arms. It's always interesting to hear other people's stories, so I like to share. She flipped over the handlebars of her bike about a year ago and had some sort of spinal cord stroke. She struggles, but is able to walk with a walker. She was telling me how her husband should be retiring soon, but they've unfortunately already used most of their retirement money due to her injury. Everyday I meet people whose whole life is turned upside down from a spinal cord injury or stroke and it's so upsetting. I don't think I ever really heard that term before this past year...and I'm in the medical field!
Speaking of people I've met, a man named Steven came up to me at lunch and we started talking. It's funny how common it is for everyone to talk to each other here and how normal it is to open with the line of "so how long have you been coming here?" Or "did you have an accident?" Or "how long have you been in that chair?" Steven just started opening up to me and said how it's almost his "3 year wreck-iversary." He was in a motorcycle accident in Guatemala. He had all kinds of stories about how he loved to travel and how his wheelchair wasn't holding him back from anything. He still sails, snorkels, and even scuba dives. He had spent a long time in the hospital after his accident and was even in a coma for about four weeks. He recalled the first time he was able to go outside the walls of the hospital and how he just wanted ice cream. He got two ice cream cones- one for each hand- and sat under the shade of a big tree on a sunny day. A quadriplegic man in an automatic wheelchair that was operated and moved by a straw (you sip or blow with your mouth in order to go forwards, backwards, or side to side) came up to him and talked about how happy he was. The man couldn't use his hands and he was that happy? He told Steven about how the doctors had just discovered some type of device that was going to help his diaphragm so he could breathe on his own (he'd been on the ventilator for 15 years....15 years!) Steven said after talking to that man, he vowed to never feel sorry for himself again. I thought that was a pretty powerful story.
I ended the day in the pool. There's a small pool (with the treadmill) and a big pool. I was in the bigger one this time...the perks of the bigger one is that it's about 5 degrees warmer, bringing it to an incredibly wonderful 95 degrees, haha. They have a "water walker" that I get to use when in the big pool. It's basically a rectangle of those pool noodles with two handles that I put around me. One therapist stays behind me at the hips and one stays in front, helping with my feet. We ended up doing laps with the walker the whole time because it was going so well! Lizzie and Dennis kept looking at each other, asking "did you do that?" Nope- it was me bringing my legs forward with each step! They were both really impressed and Dennis said I need to use the stim bike right before the pool every Wednesday to wake my legs up like that!
The good news didn't stop there...we got a phone call from a nurse at our insurance saying I was approved for the stim bike...I'm going to have my own! Everyone had warned us that it always gets denied the first time and takes about 6 months to get approval- if you even get approved. It took us 4 weeks and got approved the first time! I think some of that can be attributed to my mom's persistence and hard work though, so I'm really fortunate.
Things are definitely looking up!
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