3/15/26 – The Breath!
It’s all in the breath! Last night I actually was getting my legs and body in extension! And it was because of the breath!
My legs and lower body feel incredibly active right now! This is INTENSE! Everything feels like it has woken up!
3/16/26 – Back at The Grind
I’m trying to describe all the new sensations and activation right now. It’s been wild, I haven’t taken a ton of time for me to take notes and describe what I have been feeling lately, it’s been so busy with everything else. So here we go!
My quads are awake! My breath has really been helping facilitate new and stronger activation, and it’s been rattling my brain! It’s been very cool, because the constant “on” feeling from my quads is becoming ever more present!
Messing around with my breath the other day at Pilates has been really monumental, because it has really helped me realize how much of this is oxygenating these muscles I haven’t used in a while! Slowly but surely they are responding to all these inputs!
My low abdomen right now is “tight” and I can feel how my breath modulates this area so much. It’s really interesting, I’m surprised I didn’t catch on to this sooner? What else can I do to my body, to help him get more into extension? What else is there to do? The evening stretches have also been so helpful, I’m wondering what else I can work in?
It’s so fascinating too, how the sensations are rapidly changing throughout my feet. It’s been interesting to feel all the increase in proprioception, I’m just wondering when they are going to lift me out of my seat!
Feeling how my left shoulder really needs to “set” down and back, and how it affects my left glute engagement has been interesting too!
All these notes feel good. Taking a change to mentally offload my mind, of all the feelings and sensations I’m compiling, and getting ready to start new ones, has been so exhilarating, I cannot wait to feel and jump into what’s new!?
Things to note from PT:
- dumbbell rows in standing frame
- Dumbbell tricep kickbacks
- On stomach – triceps push-ups (narrow elbows!)
- Stretching – walker in lower rung to keep elbows tucked in
- Overhead and side as much as I can!
What’s wild is how much my legs are responding to all of this, the braces, the Exo, the stretching, the standing frame, not using the slide board, balancing on the ground, the rowing machine today, my breath, goodness you name it. My legs are doing more today than they have in such a long time and they feel better than ever. I don’t understand it. It’s like, “Neuro-vascular” or something?
I can feel how my breath has been so influential with literally, everything! I was trying to do the Hundred while stretching my legs out, and I I’ve been finally realizing how important all this breath work has been with movements! It sounds so trivial and self explanatory, but I feel like the body is always and never this way! It’s always so “obvious” and yet always so difficult to actually figure out.
I can’t ever actually know what is going on inside there, and even X-rays, MRIs, PET scans can all only tell you so much. We know so little about the brain and central nervous system, yet here we are without actually knowing how dopamine moves around! Crazy.
Gotta get some rest.
3/17/26 – Busy Grind of a Day
Jumpy. My legs are this morning! I didn’t get a chance to lay on my stomach prone after PT, and I’m wondering if I don’t get a hard reset after all the movement, if this is part of the issue on big movement days? I did 150ft! That was the farthest ever! Pretty cool!
One day at a time, let’s keep these legs moving more and more!
WOW. Got on the floor at 8:30pm and did both some yoga, and some kegel exercises! I was on the floor till almost 10 o’clock!
3/18 – Two-a-day’s / Knowing Yourself
Well, stretching out last night and getting some movement in before I fell asleep I think really helped! I am always trying to figure out ways, tips, tricks to get better sleep. And one interesting thought I had earlier in the middle of the night, was, “what if I try a weighted cooling blanket?” Because this past night, Callie put a blanket on me, with my knee pillow in place, and my legs didn’t get all sweaty, and I can feel the deeper pressure from having another blanket on me! It feels good! I honestly think this would be great! I always slept with alot of blankets in the past, so if it could help me now, I figured why not?
Trying to be consistent this week with my pelvic floor exercises, and I have! I am supposed to try to do them twice a day! I have been good about it and I’ve been feeling some real progress down there because of this consistency!
It’s so weird, it makes me think about the rest of my body, and how could I apply or leverage this “twice a day” technique for my legs? As well as the differing types of contractions for my legs? This has been very interesting, and I am wondering how The Coach app was able to figure out all these different cues for muscle contractions? It’s been very interesting actually being consistent with it!
I better get up, my body is really feeling the urge to go, and I don’t want to lie here too long, and get all sweaty or something.
It’s just so interesting to me, how my brain thinks. He thinks so much in the mornings, comes up with ideas, consolidates information. It’s so wild. That ancient book John K got on “Self Improvment” from 1905 had talked about “knowing yourself” as being the best means of helping improve yourself first. I’ve noticed how writing has done that for me. I take these mornings and slow down, write, get my thoughts, ideas, and plan out, and help set my days up for success. So weird, it just kinda “happened” over the course of writing every day for the past almost 3 years… spooky. I wonder if it’s like that for everyone?
My legs are really feeling all the overflow from all the pelvic floor and kegel work I did on the floor last night! Now it’s time to keep this up and get up and do some walking exercises today! My legs are responding so well!
I may be able to find a pattern faster if I can log a few variables for 1–2 weeks:
- PT / big movement day?
- prone after?
- floor time before bed?
- sweating at night?
- blanket pressure?
- pelvic floor work done?
- sleep quality?
- jumpiness/spasticity on waking?
- Electrolytes the day before?
How can I leverage the rods in my back as a tool to better help me stand? And walk? What is it about the rods helping support my spine that could actually be beneficial to this process?
Wow! I just noticed when I was doing the squeeze exercise on my pelvic floor, that, when I inhale, when I’m squeezing, my airway or lungs gets raspy? When I’m breathing thru my mouth to get as much air as possible, I can feel and hear it? But only when those muscles are clenched/ squeezed?
Heavy Bag – feet on the floor!? Most sensation and activation in calves and feet during Heavy Bag!
3/19/26 – Bouquets in The Sky
Always weird when you have dreams that are just fragments, make no sense, and can’t remember. But that, that phrase and image, of a “Bouquet in the Sky” is it. Weird. Almost like a graduation or celebration? Huh?
So my low back has a huge jump in movement! Rotation, torsional and side “bendy” and it’s crazy how each walk im feeling more and more! Last night doing ~200ft was crazy in the braces! Each day a little more and more!
My mom and dad called me last night, in tears of joy because I had sent the videos over to them! Goodness, my dad said, he goes, “I gotta call him” and I was about to fall asleep! I was already laying in bed! I can’t believe I moved them like that! Kinda pretty incredible. I love those two, they have so much faith in me, and the rest of their kids! I’m really lucky to have them in my back corner.
Trying to get my legs to calm down after a session like that is crucial! I only laid prone for 5-15min before I fell asleep, and I think that did help, but I am not sure if that was enough?
My legs are feeling fuller and fuller, more and more activation!
On the Heavy Bag last night, my feet were “slipping” off the footplate, but really they were kicking off from quad activation! So I helped them onto the floor, got them planted, and went to town! That was the first time in a while I tried the heavy bag with my feet on the ground and it went so well! I’m going to be doing that a lot more! Do I did that, before I did the walk, and boy are my legs responding like crazy!
Wow. I’m just in shock. Trying to get more and more work in, and there is only so much day to do it. Welp! Better get up and get moving!
Made to Pilates!
“When you get back walking”…..
I’m getting all uneven from the muscles that I’m working while walking!
Looked at a house! Goodness lots to do today!
Made it on the floor to wrap up the day and stretch out. This feels great. Let’s wrap it up for the day.
3/20 – Wooden Heart Kinda Morning
This. Is. Huge! Left glute feels so much more woken up, quads are on fire, and my calves/ lower legs are firing up like crazy! This is absolutely remarkable!
I got some awfully nice texts yesterday, about what I’m doing, from Matt, Julie, Justin. Man oh man. Justin was saying, “you’re not human”, Matt was saying, “I’m speechless”. It’s just wild to have so many folks reaching out to me and telling me these things! It’s wild! Makes ya think, and makes ya awfully grateful for all the people in our lives.
I listened to Wooden Heart yesterday morning, and cried, as soon as I got up, “With tears of joy and tears of grief”
“My hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right
But they’re heavy and awkward, always running out of fight “
It’s always interesting when I hear songs that hit so close to home these days. This was definitely one of them, that hit so close as well. So many lyrics packed in there, that song is really something.
I can feel the “anxiousness” this morning. So much to do, so much to see…. I just am feeling the urge to have to do so much right now. Appts, work, projects, my body, buy a house, talk to family, spend time with Callie, it’s all so much. It really is. Yesterday when I went to sleep I was utterly exhausted, I fell asleep on the floor when I was stretching out, t was tough getting back up off the floor.
Even right now, my lower left abdomen is so tight! It’s so tight! But! I wasn’t sweaty this past night! Getting on the floor and stretching out has been HUGE for helping my body relax! It really has been!
3/21 – Just Getting Started
It’s really interesting.. I’m just getting started, with so much! I feel like if you talk to some people and they tell you how long they are doing something, if they say 2 years, that may sound like a long time, but for me in my recovery, I’m really just getting started and dialed in to how I can get my body walking, standing, as strong and resilient as human possible!
Wow… today… has been… CRAZY!! We’ve done so much! We had an exciting and busy morning, then went to see 3 house showings, put an offer in one, and walked further today than I have yet to date! I did 270ft!! This was amazing!! We also had an INCREDIBLE morning! To say the least!
I was really focusing on the “plant” and stance foot, and trying to keep my head up! It’s so hard to try to not look at my feet underneath me, but I need to trust them, and know that’s where they are supposed to be! It’s so hard. It’s hard to coordinate all of the “things” while trying to walk! My breath, my legs, my back, my feet, oof! Trying to keep it all coordinated but that’s why I think if I’m consistent, and try to just do a little more each day, I think that’s all I can do!
Let’s keep up this progress! I got a lot to do!
The Astronaut on Earth 
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