Walking Spirit

The week in South Haven was great! We had a wonderful and relaxing time. Looking back it seems like we ate the majority of the time. South Haven has some great restaurants and, of course, wonderful ice cream! We didn't spend a lot of time on the beach because the weather was fairly gray with the occasional drizzle. However, we spent a lot of time together as a family visiting an apple orchard, vineyard, going to the movies, and looking around the town.

Madeline, Dad, and I went swimming at my hotel. When I tried to swim last year I was really only able to flounder around the pool a little bit. This year I was able to swim on my own and then hang onto a noodle float to rest. We even got into the hot tub!

I made it a point to use the wheelchair as little as possible. However, it did come in handy a couple of times. One day we gave up on the sun and decided to go to the beach anyway. Madeline and Dad fed the seagulls. When all the food was gone she told them they were done. When the seagulls didn't go away she told them she was serious! Since they didn't have beach wheelchairs, and I didn't want to risk getting sand in the joints of my legs I couldn't go on the beach, but I did walk the length of the pier to go out to the light house. The pictures above show the distance I walked.

That walk down the pier was the last great walk I took with the temporary prostheses. We came back from South Haven on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday morning I went to the Prosthetists office to get the C-Legs! Renee met me there to help me figure out how to use the new legs and make suggestions.

The legs work well. Mike, the Prosthetist, attached the right leg first and I got up and walked with that leg and the old one on my left side. The knee didn't want to bend on the first couple of steps but, as I moved it learned what I was doing and began to move freely. As I was walking it fed information to the computer through a bluetooth connection. After a few laps in the parallel bars it was pretty well programmed. Then Mike attached the left leg.

I repeated the process with the left leg, and then we worked on the process of sitting down. The knees are programmed to allow me to slowly lower into a chair instead of the rapid drop I used to have. We also worked on things like stepping down from one level to another. When I left I actually walked down the steps facing forward.

The legs have already dramatically increased my speed and the smooth flow of my gait. However, there are still many adjustments to be made. According to Mike we should have most of the adjustments made by the end of August. Some of these will be programming adjustments and some are simply learning adjustments on my part. For example, going down steps forward is still difficult because the knee has a tendency to bend too fast, hopefully this can be adjusted through programming. When I slow down the knees stiffen up to the point that I can't get my foot off the ground, this is actually something that I have to learn how to control.

Renee took pictures of the fitting/programming process. Be sure to scroll down below to see them. The pictures are in two separate posts so be sure to look at them both!