Walking,....sort of.

This week I had another breakthrough of sorts: I am able to walk with a little hop-step. I still use a crutch during the day but sometimes at the house I use the hop-step to get from one piece of furniture to another. I am a long way from really walking, but it is encouraging that my leg is now strong enough to hold me up for a short time while I catch my balance. Other than that news, I am just continuing with rehab, swimming, lifting weights, stretching, etc. It seems like my days all revolve around my next work out.

Brace-be-gone, Russian Stim, Walking the walls

Brace-be-gone
It seems that these days each week brings significant improvements. The big change this week is that I finally ceased wearing the leg brace seen in the picture on the blog homepage. In truth I have not been wearing this brace at home since early March. But I was wearing it when out and about until such time as my leg felt strong enough to hold me up – even with crutches – without wavering to the point of fail. In the month since I have been putting more and more weight on the leg, I have developed significant strength in my muscles. I am not yet able to walk without at least one crutch but I am getting closer each day.

Russian Stim
This week in rehab we tried “Russian Stim” to get my muscles moving. Russian Stim is “2500Hertz at 50 pulses per second. This means that 50 times a second a 2500Hertz pulse stream is sent to your muscle. The benefit of this is a deeper penetration of the muscle and more intense contraction. This type of stimulation is commonly used by doctors for treatment of: Rehabilitation, Scoliosis, Spinal Cord Injuries, and chronic muscular pain syndromes.” (http://www.tens-store.com/ems/ems-faq.htm)

Basically Russian Stim involves attaching electrodes to your muscles and cranking up the electricity to the point that the muscle contracts fully and sustains the contraction for a set period of time. I was on RS for about 15 minutes with 10 seconds of juice and 10 second pauses between. The experience is like being stung by a whole bunch of bees at once, except that the stings are less prickly than they would be in real life. When the sting begins, the muscle contracts very firmly. I found the experience odd but useful in that it forced my entire quadriceps to engage. The good news is that I was not very sore that evening or the next day, which indicates that I have already been using the full extent of my quadriceps in my daily exercises.

Walking on the walls
A final recent development is my ability to walk around the upper floor of our tiny house almost entirely without crutches by using furniture or the walls to support myself. This is a spectacle to behold but oddly liberating and it demonstrates increased strength and stability in my leg.

All in all it has been a good week!

One Crutch

This week I had a big breakthrough: I managed to walk with just one crutch. This involves using only the right crutch and leaning to the right a bit when taking a step with the left foot. I am not strong enough to sustain this for very long and usually my step is more like a shuffle than a full step-through, but it is a start. I try to walk with one crutch at home and sometimes when out and about, if I have the energy. Although my step is not normal with one crutch, it forces me to put more weight onto my left leg. I have also been going to the pool nearly every day and increasing the amount of walking and swimming I am doing in there. I can feel some strength returning to my leg but I also know I still have a long ways to go before I am walking without any crutches. Still, it is nice to finally be on the road to walking again. I still have problems with extension and my max flexion is only about 115, but hopefully that will improve with time.

Handicapped Parking and other forms of solidarity

Now that I am injured, I notice persons with physical limitations more than ever. Often we encounter each other while parking in adjacent handicapped spots. We show concern for each other, ask how we were injured and part with wishes for a full recovery. Of course, may people are permanently disabled and a full recovery is not possible. This does not stop any and all persons from expressing their solidarity with my injury. Many times shopkeepers or shoppers will stop to ask about my injury and then recount their own tale of recovering from an ACL repair or knee replacement. Just the other day I was in the pool practicing walking when a woman on crutches came to ask if she could use my lane because it was closest to the ladder. I explained that I too was on crutches and we embarked on a ten minute discussion of her broken foot, my leg, strategies for recovery, etc. Unfortunately as we go through life we often fail to understand the experiences or perspective of other people because we are so entrenched in our own life history. Thus we are wary of or oblivious to the struggles of new immigrants, persons of different economic or political persuasions, or those with physical limitations. If there is any positive outcome of my injury it is that I now understand more than ever what it is like to lose the use of a limb for a time, or to be unable to do things we often take for granted, things like walking, jumping, riding a bike, hopping out of the car, going up or down stairs. As I struggle to get into and out of buildings that have heavy doors, no ramps, narrow passages or otherwise limited handicapped access, I think of the persons who are permanently disabled that have to deal with these issues not just for a year but for life. We exchange knowing glances as we pass one another through the day – knowing because each understands something of what the other is going through. I hope that through this blog those without such experiences can begin to know something of what it is like to experience these things, while those in the same boat will know that they are not alone. I wish that we could all overcome such barriers and open our eyes to the perspectives of others. Every human being is entitled to have an opportunity to live life to the fullest, even if physical limitations make it necessary to provide a wider doorway, a ramp, a shallow step into the pool, or slip-free flooring. We are a much better community when we include all our members.