It’s been a while since I have written a post without pictures or video, but today I am compelled to do just that. There are some changes, dear friends that I cannot show you, because it is something that you have to feel…and so I will try to explain the miracles at my fingertips. We have been working on wrist control in Tommie’s right wrist since just after his operation, but there are many factors which have hampered our progress, not least of which is the fact that, without the operation, no movement should be possible in the muscles which control wrist movement. But we have been patiently working at waking those muscles up and I have gotten used to the weight of Tommie’s hand while I support it with my finger. This morning, suddenly, Tommie’s hand feels lighter, more as if he is carrying the weight himself. The muscles are becoming stronger, contracting more efficiently and there is more active movement at the wrist. For a second he loses control, but before I can say anything, he has corrected himself – he could feel that he had lost the muscle contraction. Do yourself a favour – try to isolate a single muscle. Pick a large one, like your hamstrings, or biceps, and try to contract it by feeling only…don’t move your limb, just tighten the muscle…takes some brain power and a lot of very subtle sensory feedback. We move on to our third session of the day, and do some cycling on the active passive trainer. In the past I have had to hold Tommie upright against my body as the cycling motion would throw him off balance and his stomach and back muscles have not been strong enough for him to stay upright without support. But today I felt a little cheeky. Without saying anything I reduced my support until I was giving support only at the base of Tommie’s spine, over an area perhaps the size of a R5 coin. Tommie was keeping himself upright! This means that his brain was receiving information from his body, telling it when it was moving from side to side, and forward and backward. In response the brain was sending signals to Tommie’s trunk muscles, telling them how and when to adjust, and it was happening almost automatically. Now to put this in perspective, for this to happen, there has to be a functioning spinal cord. Oh and, just in case that wasn’t significant enough, we ask Tommie to close his eyes and tell us, by feeling only, where his feet are in the cycling motion – and he does it with 100% accuracy for the left and the right side. Today I struggle to find the words to convey the significance of all of this to you – suffice to say that I am humbled, again, to be a part of a miracle. I am excited to be part of the process to change the landscape of medical science, and I am overwhelmed by the enormity of how far we have come and how far we still have to go…but I am inspired to never give up. -Team Tommie-
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 14:07:58 +0000
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