My game of numbers

6, 10, 52, 110, 1284 are my numbers of today.

Tomorrow it will be six months since that fateful training ride that sent my life in this direction. I really don't want to get all that dramatic about it. It happened, and now we are doing our best to deal with it. We have come a long way in those six months, and of course we have had a lot of help and learned a lot along the way. Theo and I were talking about that yesterday on the way to London. How different life was six months ago. Now we know about hospitals, spinal cord injuries, insurance, the law, all of which we knew nothing about before - and I hope reading my blog is the closest you ever have to come to knowing.

Today, at Parkwood, I did 10.02 miles on the FES bike. This was the first time I have broken the 10 mile mark. They have this set up on the bike where the computer displays a city off in the distance, and a road that leads to it...no matter how hard I go I never get any closer. You would think that something that costs 10's of thousands of dollars they could do a little better with the computer graphics. The FES bike is the one where they stick electrodes to my legs to electrically stimulate my muscles to work in a pedaling motion. We met with my rehab Dr. for a follow-up appointment yesterday and he is of the opinion that the FES is the best form of physio that I could be doing. So, I will try again, to get one to have in my house.

While Theo and I were in London, the kids were with my parents. Ella learned how to play double solitaire with my Mom, and tonight we both won so we gave ourselves a score of 52. Dad taught her how to play poker - she is becoming a card shark! I find that we are starting to get more time to play games and do things together. Having no work for my mind to wander to is quite nice. But even though I am not working at school, I am working at home. After the accident happened we hired a case manager to help us navigate the system, do the paperwork and give advice. When I got home from Parkwood we let them go, and I have been my own case manager ever since. Paperwork, phone calls, e-mail, purchasing supplies and making appointments. I have decided that recovering from and SCI is a full time job, and then some.

Which leads me to my next point - back to 110. I worked with Barry again today, and we reminisced about my days at Parkwood. I was trying so hard to make things happen that were not - like moving my legs in the pool. Giving 110% all the time was actually counter productive because it just end up using other muscles not involved in the action I was trying to make happen - leaving me more than exhausted. I am slowly learning that it is not really a matter of how hard I work - if those sensory and motor neurons are going to come back, they will, and not because of how much effort I put into them. Once they do come back though, that is where the effort comes in - to make them strong again. This week in the pool I was able to pendulum my legs in the deep end, swinging them side to side - engaging core muscles to do the work like they never have done before. 110 all the way.

Still in second place on the leaderboard, I walked 1284 steps today in the Ekso. I had to skip last week, but this week I wanted to beat that 1018 from the week before. We are walking out in the halls now, which makes it easier because there are less corners to make. Turns take time and energy. I was really tired when I was done and rested my head on the lunch table for a bit before I ate. Next week I am going for more time walking, less time resting.

Those are this week's numbers - maybe I should buy a lottery ticket?