1/5
Okay, these quads have really stepped it up today, with a huge amount of stability added to my chest workouts I’ve noticed just now here at the gym! I’m really glad the time in the gym is complementing my SCI rehab journey with therapy as well. I really do think I get to make some really good gains from pairing both together!
Just got done laying supine on the floor, with the astronaut pants on and doing a little reading. It’s wild how my lower left abdomen is so tight and spasms so much. So strong that it can strongly lift my leg from the floor. I have to deeply breathe and slowly calm my body to react less and less. I really feel like I truly am working out. The time spent right now “resting” is extremely active. Without my slow, deep inhalations and exhalations, my body would be squirming and writhing with tightness and a squeeze most people wouldn’t know. But I close my eyes, slow my breath, focus. I focus on my breath in, hold. My breath out, hold. And I repeat. And sometimes I do this for as long as a workout. It’s intense.
I notice too, that this time spent on my back is rest. I get to recharge. This doesn’t happen very often, throughout the day. I’m really glad that I am taking this time to rest, recover, and work this inhibitory signals to my legs. They need to shut off. They need to be straight. And fortunately, that’s what they are! I just need to coordinate this effort, the excitatory and inhibitory signals.
It’s so odd, how my left abdomen feels. I really wonder what happened for it to feel this way, sometimes. What caused such significant trauma? I know that it will heal. Our bodies always do. It’s just how much time and effort can I help it with these days?
Wow, as I lie on my back, my lower left back is so tight! This position is interesting because this is and should be “normal”. But it feels like such a weird/ awkward position? I need to let my body relearn what these seemingly foreign positions are.
My legs feel cold? After I woke up from the nap, my whole body does. My legs and quads are surely engaged, and they want more.
You ever just get so cold, your temperature literally drops below 96? Must just be me. This sucks. I don’t know what came over my body, but I just got the worst case of chills ever. This was awful. I really hope that it means my body is going through a big change. I bet it’s all that strength coming back in my legs. That’s gotta be it! Not quite sure, but I’m going to hope for the best!
I find it fascinating, attempting to grow my muscles and nervous system back from basically nothing. They’re growing, that is forsure! I feel my right thigh and honestly both my legs really filling in. Same with my glutes. After I woke from the nap today, I got up, and my lower portion of my right leg (my shank) was active and I was feeling how much he wanted to go! So now I will continue my journey towards reciprocal movements, I need to make sure I’m steadily and slowly increasing my movements, day by day.
If I can slowly work in more Tai Chi, and other slow and controlled reciprocal movements, like crawling, opposite leg lifts, I should be in good shape. I’m just wondering how to progress this?
1/6
So, my legs have had a drastic rise in touch and activation sensations today! It’s been interesting how well they have been going! I do notice how quickly and easily it is at work to just “sit”, as in my body not moving a whole lot. I need to make sure that isn’t the case! I don’t want to stay here too long in the car, I just wanted to jot a couple notes! Up to the apartment!
At the gym, and doing some shoulder movements/ exercises that are superrr hard! I see why people always make fun of gym goers, the guys who people just say have “pretty muscles” but don’t know how to use ‘em. I’m doing a movement like starting a small engine, snowmobile, lawnmower, you name it. People are pretty bad at these different movements, it’s interesting. Why is that? Why do muscles only work in the ways that they are worked? Shouldn’t they just be strong in any way you want to use them, that is, if they are “strong”?
So whatever I am doing with my legs at the gym, it’s really helping. My legs feel wild! This gym session was great!
I don’t know how to explain this, it’s so weird. It’s like, I’m trying to bridge the gap between voluntary motion and voluntary spasms. Like, when I was doing my leg movements, when I was at the cable machine and doing my hamstring stretch/ quads exercise, I was noticing something. When I would pull back, I could time my conscious thought to “fire quads, lift knee” with what felt and what I thought was a spasm of my leg lifting my knee. Then, when I stopped moving myself, the spasms stopped. When I tried to lift my knee again, the “spasm” or me lifting my leg came back as well? This was interesting because I did this the other day too, it was really cool! Then, when I got back to the apartment, Callie and I talked about this, amongst other things related to all the changes in sensations. When I mentioned this, I went to the blog, and I watched the video of me trying to squeeze my legs together, in the bed. But, it could or may not have been a spasm?
So, I’m thinking about this, and maybe that’s how it works? Time your volitional movement with a spasm enough times, to help build the repetition in your brain to facilitate it to become volitional? Then it becomes volitional? And possibly then, your brain realizes that it’s the same movement pattern? Is that it? How else can I test this and figure it out? What other “spasms” can I trigger?
1/7
“You can’t improve what you don’t track” was what Erick and I were talking about today day! It was a fun conversation of how runners and trainers he follows, all take daily notes on nutrition, their routine, and all the small nuanced things in their life that seem trivial. This tracking of notes really helps them be able to help their routine over time. I can’t help but relate to my own SCI rehab and recovery, and how I am attempting to do the same? I do think this has been very helpful to me at least to track progress and the small variations my body is producing over time!
1/8
Trivia….. not much for body….. dropped things….. today was a busy hectic day! Not so bad, but I’ll tell ya, it’s always an interesting time when I try to just participate in society. It’s hard. My body isn’t always up for it. But we sure do try! Those cheese curds were awfully tasty! But I have a feeling this isn’t going to be good for my GI tract.
1/9
It’s been about a day without any real notes on progress?! That’s never like me, but it’s an indicator how busy I am. I have so many little things to schedule these days and get figured out. Court, doctors, wheelchair stuff, you name it. It’s busy. Let’s get back to square one. I need my body to be my focus.
I do think that last night my balance was really good! I also hit a bump on the sidewalk, almost flipped, and didn’t freak out! Which was great! Just need to get the heck out of this chair so I don’t have to deal with situations like this all the time anymore. It’s aggravating.
I was thinking about giving my KAFO’s another run for their money. Might as well, right? My body responds well to variety, so it will be interesting to see how it does this go around, that is if I can fit in them! My legs are growing and getting stronger! So I am not sure even if I will fit!
I woke up yesterday with these glute and quad spasms that were tricky for me to try to simmer down! But, that’s good they are activating like that in the morning! That’s a good sign they are turning on more and more!
I’m fatigued. My legs are feeling fuller than ever before. My body aches. My left abdomen feels like a huge lump and never ending cramp. My feet feel full, down into my toes. My neck, especially on the left side, is throbbing on what feels on the surface level. It’s almost like I feel blood being pumped into areas of my body it hasn’t in what feels like ever, and it’s crazy. My body is struggling right now. What is this? My blood pressure and temperature are okay? Ope, I’m chilly too. Shoot.
I’m working really hard right now to be able to get myself to hold my torso up in the standing frame without holding on with my two hands. I can do it with just one hand pretty easily! And outstretched overhead, but to get both? Not quite just yet! I honestly had the worst stomach ache/ GI issue earlier today, and it was the worst. It feels like my entire body was trying to tear itself apart.
Honestly, my quads are feeling really interesting right now. They’re very engaged, stretched, tired, and trying! It’s odd because they are really trying a lot more in the standing frame because I have no chest support. I think that’s making them work even more???
Trying to do some good mornings in the standing frame has been good for the glute strength I hope and think! I just held myself up in the standing frame without any hand support! I was really leaning back, and hopefully that stretched me out pretty good! I hope! I sure don’t like looking down at this little bit of a chubby belly I have on me, but I guess it’s mostly healthy weight. I needed to bulk up a bit after it all so I can’t complain too much!
What is it about Time? The idea of needing to take a significant amount of it to get something accomplished? I’ve just noticed how impatient the world seems to be these days. People are in a rush for seemingly every little thing. Traffic, fast food, home delivery from Amazon, you name it. I guess I have to even think about me. And how I am never really fully satisfied with my own progress. I really am making gains every day, but it sometimes feels so slow. I guess patience as a virtue takes time to also develop. It’s kinda in its name, I guess. Fortunately I am able to slow myself down better and better these days. It’s just hard when my body revolts so extremely and painfully against me.
I do feel the inner struggle with keeping focus, participating in every day life, my relationship(s), aka my family, friends, Callie, and really everything that it takes in our modern world to be a functional member of society. It’s so hard. I have so much I would personally like to be able to do. I feel like the break from Christmas was really only a brief time I was able to focus on myself.
1/10
Today was pretty interesting. I was able to move my body increasingly better after therapy like never before! I was doing a “tall sitting” exercise, and it was really getting my legs working! This was awesome because I think this will be an excellent exercise for me to try to progress to fully standing on my own!
So I’m wondering why my hamstrings have to get so tight when I get so tired. I hate it. Why are they so fatigued? They gotta chill out.
1/11
Holy smokes. This is intense! I haven’t woke up with this large of a change in sensation in a WHILE! I have to say, my right side under the area of my lobectomy? Feels basically normal, these past few days it’s been aching with sharp pain and I knew something big was happening!! Then my lower abdomen and pelvis? Those muscles are engaging so much! I can feel my one lil belly roll kinda suck in when I’m contracting my abs! I’ve never felt that before! Then to move on to my legs! Wow, I forgot about my lower back, he’s engaging so much! It’s really incredible!
My legs. The quads are filling in! Although my hamstrings feel tight, I can feel so much on the outsides of my legs now engaging. And my knees? They’ve had a sudden increase in proprioception as well! My lower legs into my calves, shins and feet, have been having a change as well! It’s so interesting how a cooling effect is now perceived! The tingling has dropped way down and a cool humming feeling is there in its place. I’m also noticing how significant my inhalations are too! It doesn’t immediately kick my leg into a spasm!
The “tall sitting” exercises have been great, especially for someone with a spinal cord injury like me. If I don’t put myself and my body on the “hairy edge” of comfort, I don’t see these monumental leaps in advancement. It’s weird? I really am feeling and engaging so much more from this! We probably increased the height of the mat so we were maybe 5” taller than the wheelchair seat height, and I’ll tell you what, my legs were engaging so much!
Bridget had asked the student to palpate my quads to see how much they were contracting during each shuttle movement and change! They were both (as was I) so impressed with how well they were doing!
Now I need to figure out how to do this more, as well as see if I can somehow circumnavigate the Botox. so fascinating how much my legs are engaging too when I expose my body to these different positions!
For spinal cord injury therapy, it’s really hard to get the inhibitory signals firing more. There just isn’t research for that right now. At least I haven’t found any yet. So trying to find the right combo for neurorehabilition, work and rest, is so difficult right now.
I’m really pleasantly surprised how well my bladder control was last night as well. I really do need to stay hydrated. It’s so difficult to try to always remember, but the feeling of “feeling good” is sometimes just enough to keep things going.
Whoa, I just had a realization. I wonder if the reason that I sometimes feel “dizzy” or slightly disoriented with my feet on the floor, is because I’m getting proprioceptive feedback being sent to my brain through my spinal cord?! That honestly would be amazing?! I wonder if this makes sense? I really think it does, because what else would be going on?
I really think that’s it! It’s my brain making sense of new signals! I’m so excited to allow my body and brain the time to try to process this! This is huge!
This was a really amazing feeling! I really focused in the balls of my feet! And even right now are really sensing so much!
I took a bit of a rest day. I think my body could use it. But rest days are hard for me too, because my body wants to go.
We went to play some bar board games! Haven’t done this one yet with Callie! It was a first for the new year! I’m really glad with how my legs responded! I had my feet on the floor the whole time!
When we got home, I took some time to get the standing frame! Which was great because I knew that I hadn’t earlier in the day, and I didn’t want to get tight while I was sleeping! Plus, I like how my legs feel when I’m up and about!
What a busy week, and great to get back on some sort of schedule! I’m really pleased with my quad progress! I need to keep them going! This is about it for now!!
The Astronaut on Earth 
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