February 15, 2017

I've forgotten to post a few updates...

First of all, Quyen did an assessment last Wednesday. I get one every four weeks (once a month) to track my progress, change/update my goals, and to determine if we should extend therapy based on any improvement seen. She did probably the most thorough assessment I've ever had. She did the normal tests and then moved my legs or repositioned my body to check movement in different positions in order to tell where certain movement was coming from and if I had any activation of smaller muscles we've never checked before. A lot of my reaching measurements improved from four weeks ago, meaning my core and balance are still getting stronger. I had new ankle movement that was even stronger in a different position. There are two muscles that move your ankle up and down, so she moved me in a way to isolate one from the other so we knew which one was responsible for the movement. Surprisingly, the lesser muscle was actually stronger (I've realized that I'm never part of the norm). She told me that in a normal position, like laying on my back, my calf muscle responsible for the ankle movement has to fight my own tone and spasms...basically, I'm working against myself. I wonder how many other muscles I do this with?! Afterwards, we did some standing and she made me do most of the work. She was surprised at how well I did with the "sit to stand" and then how I was able to hold my knees and hips on my own. She had even called a tech over to help because she thought we would need them in order to get me to the standing position and then to help hold my hips once we were up. We didn't even need a second person!

Thursday was my first day of skiing. I volunteered as a patient for the Shenandoah PT program a few months ago and it went so well that I signed up to be a patient again for their "PT and ski" at Wintergreen resort. I spent an hour doing PT work and then an hour on the slopes. I haven't skied in years and I definitely hadn't had the opportunity to do adaptive skiing before. There are two types--a bi-ski and a mono-ski. The mono-ski doesn't require as much core or upper body strength, so that's what they start everyone on. It's kind of like a sled that I sit in. I had two "rigors" in each had that had blades on the bottom and I used them to steer with. I was tethered to another person behind me, either on skis or a snowboard, and they yelled out which direction to steer. It had been pretty warm last week, but Thursday was a lot colder and definitely windier. The snow was probably all fake and it was pretty icy, but it was such an awesome experience. I honestly was kind of dreading it because I absolutely hate the cold. I'm the first to volunteer to do anything, but I also like to try to talk myself out of it when the time comes because I'd rather stay home in my pjs in front of the fire, but I'm so glad I didn't bail. The PT went really well and I was surprising pretty good at the skiing! They kept having to make it harder, having me make sharp turns or weave in and out of different obstacles. They think I might be able to try a mono-ski sometime soon!

Dusty and I went to a nice brunch on Sunday to make up for our Valentine's Day apart (I have therapy on Tuesdays) and then went to a brewery. I think all we've been through has taught us that we should celebrate our love every day and that experiences last way longer than anything materialistic. Everyone kept asking me what he got me for Valentine's Day and I just couldn't help but think about how much things have changed. "What he got me?" Why does the day have to be about that? I mean, if you want to talk about what he got me, it's the Apple Watch he bought me for Christmas that will probably also be my Easter and Birthday presents as well, haha. Most importantly, we do things for each other on a regular basis. We show each other that we are constantly thinking of each other and if there happens to be something materialistic that reminds us of the other, we get it for them. Isn't that so much better anyways?

Today was luckily a much better day of therapy. (I needed that after how down I felt about yesterday!) Quyen was out sick, so I was with Rachel (one of my favorite therapists from the pool). She's so smart and always suggests something new for me to do by saying "why don't we try this?" Usually a therapist says that and it's kind of a disaster because we don't think everything through, but every time Rachel says it, I find something new that I'm able to do. She was the first one to make me swim in the pool and today, she was the first one to make me crawl and tall kneel walk over ground. She had to help me stabilize my hips and unweight the leg I was moving, but said that I was initiating the movements and I had to use both my core and arm strength. We also did the Ge-o and like I've said, I did the complete active mode for the first time a few weeks ago, meaning I was doing all the work. It was the first time they had a patient be able to "walk" in that mode that wasn't already walking, but we put the threshold, aka resistance, at 1 (the lowest it would go). The next week, Quyen made me do it at a resistance of 20 and she just made sure the balls of my feet made contact with the foot pedal with each step. Well...this week, Rachel had me in passive mode (where the machine did everything as a warm up), then we switched to active assist (where the machine did 40% and I did the rest), and she finally switched to completely active mode. However, she never changed the threshold! I was thinking about how well it was going, but it was also SO hard! I let a few minutes pass before I asked what the threshold was set at and she said 40! So I pretty much doubled the resistance I was at and that's a HUGE jump! (Quyen is going to be so pleased when she reads the notes from today!!)

I finished the day in the pool with Dennis. I was already exhausted from my session with Rachel, but knew Dennis wasn't going to take it easy on me. He had a student with him (who I really like and think is going to make a great therapist). We did walking with the water walker and it was so much better than the walking over ground yesterday. I was moving each leg forward completely on my own and for the first time, I wasn't using much hip compensation. It's so much easier to use my abs and hip to throw my legs forward, but I was focusing on just using my leg muscles (and Dennis noticed without me even saying that's what I was doing). We then did some kicking, side stepping and marching, all which went well and I was so relieved to leave Baltimore on such a high note after feeling defeated from my 20 minutes of struggle yesterday. Hopefully things continue on an uphill climb as I go to Wintergreen tomorrow for more PT and ski with the SU students!