Walking Spirit

I'm writing early today because I will be spending the night at my home this evening and I currently don't have an internet connection there. I don't have a lot to report this week. There is one bit of exciting news but I'll save that little tidbit for later. After all, I have to keep you salivating or else you won't read all of my words! While we're on that subject, how is it that I get 29 responses on a picture and only 9 responses on words a week later?! Come on folks, throw me a bone, I enjoy hearing from you. It would be especially helpful if you would let me know what you want to hear about. Then, when it's a slow week, I won't have to spend so much time racking my brain for ideas.

So, since it's been a slow week, I've spent the better part of the afternoon thinking about what I could say this week. Those of you who know me know that I have a habit of procrastinating and should be amazed that I've given this so much thought! And I've decided to share with you how it feels to stand on one leg. I know, all of you have the ability to do this but, keep in mind that I no longer have any muscles from slightly above the knee down. So, take a moment and stand on one leg. Now, don't use your other leg to help you balance, this will be fairly difficult but give it a try. Next, relax the muscles beneath your knee, this includes all of those ankle and foot muscles that we never think about. If you were successful with the instructions above (which is not easy because certain muscles tend to work automatically and are hard to isolate) you should now pick yourself up off the floor.

Now, with all of that in mind I'm not sure why my therapist keeps telling me to try to balance with no hands! One hand I can do but no hands just seems too high an expectation! For the record, just standing up feels fantastic but I'm not all that mobile yet. To keep my back from hurting too much I have to use my abs and my gluts (butt muscles) to stand and relieve pressure from my lower back. I also have to flex my gluts (butt muscles) to move my hip forward and mimic walking. The result is that since I only have my right leg my right gluts (right butt cheek) is now bigger than the left. I'm lopsided! However, my therapist says this is only temporary and it's really not that noticeable. Alright, this paragraph began with me talking about balancing with no hands and that's how it's going to end. Today my therapist had me stand between the parallel bars and balance with no hands. This was achieved by placing the remainder of my left leg on a box and a phone book. I stood with nothing but my legs supporting me and it felt great!

Now, are you ready for that little tidbit that I promised at the beginning? The point of this story of balance and how great it felt to stand without using my upper body strength is this. Yesterday they fitted me for my left leg! Thanks to today's exercise I now am comforted by the knowledge that I'll be able to stand with the new leg. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll be standing on my own two "feet". Even though they will be made of rubber I will own my feet and the legs they are attached to! Stay tuned for more next week, can't wait to read your comments!