Walking and chewing bubble gum, yeah right! Ok. Where do I begin? In a prior post, I mentioned starting therapy to walk. Last Wednesday (October 15) I was evaluated by Janet. She checked the strength in my leg, hip and buttock. She evaluated my hips to determine my legs are the same length. She watched me walk and then gave me some pointers on walking. In a prior video, I showed how I am using forearm crutches. Wow, what a difference that one change made in my walking. Janet made me walk between parallel bars. She taught me how to walk using a 4 point pattern. My right crutch hits the floor, immediately followed by my left foot. Then my left crutch hits the floor, followed my my right foot. I joked by saying that this re-learning to walk is going to make it impossible for me to walk and chew bubblegum at the same time!! I have to really concentrate. By the end of our first session, she explained to me that the next step in the process was to learn to walk with a 2 point pattern. Right crutch and left leg simultaneously. Then left crutch and right leg simultaneously. This is harder, because it requires me to “trust” my prosthetic knee. I left there on Wednesday determined to walk with the 2 point pattern the next time I saw Janet. I told Shari that my goal was to “wow” Janet. Monday (October 20) was my second session with her and I am pleased to report I “wowed” her! She could not believe the progress I made in a few short days! During Monday’s session, I walked in front of full length mirrors to see my progress and make corrections to my gait. There is a tendency for new walkers to swing the prosthetic leg out to the side with a limp. She was quick to point out that I am not doing that. My leg goes straight forward like a “regular” walker. No side swing at all! She did tell me that I need to make a correction in my tempo. I take a slow, methodical step with my prosthesis (as I should) to be sure the knee locks fully before moving through my step, but I take a quick step with my good leg. If you can imagine having a sore foot and as you walk you quickly get off that sore foot. Janet wants me to slow the good step to match my prosthetic step. I am working on that. (My next session is Wednesday, October 22, and I want to have that correction under my belt.) I also worked briefly on minimizing my reliance on my right crutch. Once I have that down, I can ditch that crutch and work with one. After that, one cane, then no cane. It will all happen in due time. Then once I have this walking down, I can move on to my “high tech knee”. After physical therapy, I went to the Y to get some weightlifting in. This is the first time I went sporting my leg. I went through the stations–working on upper and lower body. All was going well until I got to the station where I needed to do leg curls. At that station, I lay face down and curl my leg up. I could not do it while wearing my leg, so I took a moment to take it off. I am sure that action turned a few heads. I could only imagine that I was one of a few (if not the ONLY person) to take off a leg to complete an exercise! That thought made me smile! It was a good work out. I immediately went home to shower. When I took off my gel liner I had a surprise waiting for me. You see, as I wear my liner and do a lot of walking/exercising, I tend to sweat. My stump sweats too. When I took my liner off, I had a full tablespoon (if not more) of sweat in the bottom of it. I know it sounds gross, but hey, welcome to my new normal!! Imagine wearing a neoprene wrap to lose inches around the waist by sweating it off, well that is what it is like for me on my stump! Its really a bit funny. My prosthetist tells me that with time, my stump sweating will slow down. We will see. If not, I will carry a towel with me to dry my leg during the day. As a related aside, my sweating stump is shrinking. I mentioned the socks to help make my socket fit better. The various plies being used to fill in the gap. Monday I graduated up to the 3 ply sock. Remember, initial shrinking is good. That means progress towards my “bionic leg”! One more cool story. On Sunday, Shari and I went to spend time with her family. To get into and out of their house through the garage, I am required to climb a few steps. No big deal, because I do that at our house every day. I am a pro! Well, as we were leaving I was carefully going down the steps. I got about three steps down when I felt myself falling backwards (up the stairs). What made the experience strange was it happened in super slow motion. Shari was behind me and I said back to her, “I’m falling backwards”. It was so slow. I landed on her and pinned her between me and the door frame. No harm except to my ego! Her brother was close by and gave me a bear hug and pulled me back up. Oh well. Another life experience. Welcome to my new normal! Until next time!
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 13:01:24 +0000
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