Back to WWRC for rehab

[htran]

Thanks John,

I think deep down I know what I need to do also. Like I said haven't had the means to. But it's definitely on my priority list.. Once I do go, I just hope that god is on my side...

[graybeard]

Htran, keep at it, I hope good things will come your way. Nothing we accomplish in recovery comes easy. God will be with you, even at times you'll feel abandoned. Good luck to you. Cory, many thanks for your support. Dude, your wisdom sure has helped me, particularly after last week's fiasco. You're right, there are bad days, it just when they come in 3-4 days at once, I feel plowed. Keep up your great recovery, man, I am watching your videos, and trying to pick up any tips from them. Keep putting the vids up, I know they're helping me and others......John

[Aly]

The pics of the rehab sent me for a loop with flashbacks I am working on getting a seating eval done I hope I get up there before you are done with your rehab to actualy see all your progress!!!

[graybeard]

23rd week at Woodrow Wilson RC.........

Man,what a difference a week can make!!!! Cory,ya nailed it. There are good days and bad days. Came back this week and, dunno, stuff went awefully well. The big kicker, right off, was the Ergys 2 ride. The first 2 rides were tough, 0.5/8 @ 51 rpm and 0.8/8 @ 45 rpm. Neither much to talk about. Friday, PT decided to change up the whole scene. 32 rpm with NO STIM, for as long as I could go (30 min. max). I figgered 10 min max, PT thought maybe 15 minimum. Went the entire 30 minutes, without stim, at 40 rpm. This means the bike is now a spin bike, no electrodes needed. Next up, hit 190lbs on the leg press,darn near my weight. After fussing with a bum knee, it jus went on a roll. Went on a monster walk for approx. 1600 ft. It whup my tail, but it felt groovy gettn it done,took an hour tho'. Snails still pass me rather handily. Botox shots to the butt , I mean lef calf, have been put off till Aug. 14. Which means, yup, I get to stay another 6-8 wks. I will be off 2weeks after 7/28, then back to the hammer in mid-Aug. Shots were put off due to my vacation, which I had planned way before I started at the "W". Ok, back to rehab stuff. Pool therapy is doing well, I continue to see better steps with walker, however, i believe doing this exercise is what is aggervating my carpal tunnel pain. Hamstring and side-to-side leg exercises show stronger muscle contractions, but they do tire rather quickly. This I need to improve on. Ab workouts did ok, PT added a new exercise for the BLUE BALL, on top of what was added 2 weeks ago. This one, I lean to one side and try to not hit the floor, then pull myself back up using that sides muscles( I ferget their names). It didnt go well. A couple of splats and the weights were replaced with jus reaching. Still no graceful dives to the floor. This has pointed out a major weakness in my hip/ab area, which explains my trouble standing.Yeah I know, way slow on the thinking here. PT modified my AFO to restrict the knee from hyper-extending too much. This worked ok, but what was sweet was every so often, we didnt use the stim-pack to lift the lef knee and on most occasions,I could get enough lift to clear the step. Only a few steps, mind you, but this was a first. Lastly, for OT, I had modified a set of walker legs so I can use it at the beach. We went to beach volleyball court to test them out, and they worked really great. Only draw backs, the sand was pretty packed, so jury still out on deep or soft sand, and I do hafta be careful of placement of my feet. I got a fair amount of pics to post, but left my camera cord in dorm room again. Will post these tomarrow when I return. Overall, one slammer of a week . Amen, Cory, there are good days after all......John

[graybeard]

Aly, please give me a heads-up if you can roll on up here. Would really like to meet you. Did see Robin the other day, once again creating trouble where he could find it . Heck, its always good to see him. Take care, John

[shell2006]

Hey John,

Sounds like things are going really good for you. Am I reading it right, are you going to be staying at WWRC longer? Take care................Shelley

[graybeard]

Hey Shelley, my friend....yes I'll be there for awhile yet. I am off for 2 weeks at the end of July, the return on 8/14. How you been? I am driving now....oh shoot, I'll pm ya. Take care, John

[davesgirl aka anty]

Wow john you came a long way keep up the great work anty

[queen]

GB..,
See now I told ya, I told ya.....after some time you stop worrying about one thing and move onto something else... I started with about 10 things and as time passes you conquer and drop them one by one.....so great to hear your doing so well, the bike, weights (wow!) and walkin 1600 ft. (now that's the interior of my house and garage) and I can't even do that. Snail's pace now but you'll get faster there too! Awesome,,,just awesome! Use those ribbons and work the ankles as best ya can...that will help with inconvenient terrain.
My best to you, John....keep'her up!!!
Queenie

[graybeard]

24th week at Woodrow Wilson......

Another good week of work put in. Could only push 185lbs on the leg press, yet did feel good that the left knee didnt complain too much. The Ergys 2 "spin" bike rides were fairly ok, PT increased the resistance to 1/8 Kp, again with no stim, and the ride at 35 rpm. I finished the 30 min. ride at 36 rpm avg., which showed the legs are not too strong when demand is added. So, plenty of room for improvement here. Pool therapy went very well, as PT added a couple more exercises to try. We first went back to a marching type exercise, doing one leg at a time. Had to have some help with this, but hamstrings are getting some movement, as with doing a hamstring curl standing, bringing leg at a 90o angle behind me. Started doing 'sit-to-stand' exercise, and these, well, were kinda ok. Got wobbly a few times, and some splashdowns instead of sit downs. So, sorta need to be better at these. Tried using 2 Afo's, with the stim pack, and this produced some pretty good gait walks. Felt at times had better posture, and better heel-to toe steps. Looking for more consistancy with this set-up. Did some mat exercises, and for first time, was able to draw my left knee to my chest lying on my side. But, when tone kicked in, oh yeah, aint nothing bending. Ab workouts were pretty good, added a crunch set to them, putting a chair under my feet, and bending my knees at 90o angle. Did 50 of these, and they took the starch out of me. Another point of weakness to work on.While using the blue ball, PT had it placed directly under my back with legs bent, and do sit ups from there. Got 10, and that was it. Feebed real fast with this exercise. Did some more 1600ft walks, no improvement on time. Cant maintain a steady pace before backsliding into slower steps. Nu-Step is going well,as I am doing longer legs only steps at setting of 6. Hamstring efforts on this machine showed renewed promise with several runs of 3+minutes of push-pull. Will see this week if an increase in setting is doable. Will try again to post pics, have reverted to a computer dork again, cant seem to remember how to do it. Am looking for another week to build on these small improvements, see what happens....Take care all......John

[DeadEye]

Still spraying yourself with the water bottle to make it appear you're sweating?

In reality, I do know how hard you're working. I see this guy busting his ass! I stopped in Friday to swap out cushions to try a new one but you weren't in PT, amazing! Catch you next trip. Hope you're doing great, and keep pluggin'. Enjoy the vaca if I don't see ya.

[graybeard]

25th week at Woodrow Wilson......

Well, time to take a break(not!!). I finished off my stint here, and will be back in 2 weeks. The workouts were a mixed bag. The sit-to-stand exercises in the pool were better, just not to the point of being able to do these without help controlling my legs from going outward(duck feet). I did better with the walking using a walker, increased number of laps going back and forth across the pool. Hamstring curls for the left leg are showing small gains, still need assistance to complete these. The side to side motion went better, left side is steadily gaining strength and range. I continue to ride the FES bike(Ergys 2) without the use of the e-stim, and results are slowly improving. I finished the week with rides of 2/8 Kp at 32 rpm, finishing with a 34 rpm avg. Yes, this rocked my rearend. Still lots of improvement needed here. Low end workouts on bike arent gonna get me too far. Continue to do increased ab workouts on BLUE BALL !!! Increased weight to 4lbs for reaching to the side exercises, which do seem to be going better. PT thinking about trying to do "butt raises"(Bruce's term) when i return. Have begun to use a smaller weight ball( 500 grm) for ab workouts, doing crossover and straight sit-ups. This makes the abs do more of the work to lift myself up. Workouts on the Nu-Step went very well, did increase level of resistance to 7 on Friday, managed to do about half the regimen at this level. Certainly tired the legs out. Accomplished the 1600ft walk in 53 minutes(best), 55 minutes a couple days later. Both under an hour, really need to boost the speed up. One real problem facing me is the tight ankles agin. When doing the sit-to-stand in gym, using a mirror, can really see what bird legs I got for caffs, and that I cant get good flex over my ankles, hips being back too far. This explains a lot of my issues with balance and standing on my own. Very unstable. Did some good sessions on the Litegait on an Eliptical machine, focusing entirely on proper gait and initating weight bearing on each leg while stepping. Quad cane walking didnt go well, shoulder flamed out me way too early to get a successful walk in . One huge positive out of this week is I no longer need to have an adductor wedge on my left side of my cushion. When first discharged from the hospital, I had "frog" legs real bad. Staff put this wedge in place, and it stayed there till this week. This shows a good bit of strength returning to my hip muscles. Still working with Afo's on both legs with stim pack. Not so good this week, but still managed a good walk in Monday. Using an Afo with a leg brace for left side went slow. Has potential to greatly improve gait, jus not real used to this set-up as yet. Thats gonna do it for this week...see ya'll in a few.....John

[graybeard]

26th and 27th week at Woodrow Wilson.......

Ok, go ahead and call me lazy butt......I just couldnt get motorvated to post my first week back at the "W". In a nutshell, it was rough. I couldnt hit my leg press numbers, tops was 165 lbs. The pool therapy went from bad to ok. The first session was terrible. Couldnt walk very far before the carpal tunnel issue stopped my walk. Exercises were slow and cumbersome. What is bad of all this is that for 2 hrs. each day I would workout, and walk, during my break. Hard to believe I had dropped off that significantly. By the end of the first week back, I had begun to pick-up and get my groovyness back. I nailed the bike ride fairly well, going 35rpm at 1/8 Kp resistance, and finished with a 37rpm avg. The 2nd pool therapy went better, as my walk demonstrated stamina and strength with the walker. Still bad technique, and took PT some time to figger it out, but I was taking too long of a step with the right leg that caused problems with my gait. Did some distance walking that went better, though speed wise it was about the same. Had to get my KAFO repaired, so I lost the use of it for a few days. Apparently, you cant wear these things in the standing frame. When you lower the standing frame, the brace dont bend real well....duh. The following week produce an avalance of results. We tried for the first time in the parallel bars walking with only one hand for support. I lifted the left hand, and could walk(somewhat) using the right to help swing my left leg thru. My trunk control is improving tremendously. PT saw to it that I now do 10lb weights on the GREEN ball??????? oh...blue ball mysteriously had flattened. The green ball is sposed to be the same size, but seemed smaller. The blue one came back to life later this week, and so back to the party. The exercises are a heck of alot harder at this weight, so defintely challenged my trunk. Had a few "uh-ohs", but each time was able to recover decently. The real benefit of my trunk strength is in the free-standing. in OT, was able to stand for a few minutes at a time. PT had adjusted my dorsal flexion on my KAFO, which affects how I am able to lean forward, trying to align my hips over my ankles. Another party in this is the 2nd round of Botox shots to my left calf. I think the shots are slowly taking effect on my tight ankle.Another compelling developement is the use of an AFO on the right leg. Used in conjunction with the left KAFO, I do seem to have better stability walking and putting weight on the right leg. I hope to pursue this further next week, using a AFO on the left and a stim-pack. Tried using this set-up without stim, and it had mixed results. The bike ride for the 2nd week went better. I finished with a ride on friday of 44rpm, using 0 resistance. I hoped to do better, though I did manage a better distance. so some consolation. We tried the Litegait again on the eliptical trainer, and it just didnt click. Could not get the legs to work together for a walking gait. Continued the workouts on the Nu-Step, and could never get back to the level of resistance before vacation. Went as far as level 6 for resistance. Need to increase to level 7 to get even here. Thats all for this week, will hope for better results next week........John

[darkeyed_daisy]

I been wondering about you......I thought you went on an extended vacation on a beach or something!!!!! LOL

Its good to hear from you again and hear that you are still making progress even after a few weeks off...

Just keep pushing.......remember no pain no gain!!! LOL

[Aly]

You aren't crazy the green ball at the place I go to is slightly smaller than the blue one. I think they are like theraband and are color coded for size and strength. I am coming up there for a seating eval on the 7th, I'll cruise threw the land of memeries and say hi. I bet that hallway wont seem nearly as long to me now.