10/4/26 – You’re Safe Now
What do our muscles do when we are sleeping? Because, mine are doing some very interesting things! They also got the most straight in extension to date last night and still carrying over this morning too! I’ve noticed how I need to keep the side of my shoulders tucked down and retracted, plus my abdomen has been tugging and contracting like crazy all morning too, which leads me to believe all the muscles in my trunk are working to support my legs while they are working on extension!?
So right now, I was feeling the yank and the tug of my legs while they were kicking out in extension. So instead of fighting it, I let em. It wasn’t always very comfortable, but I let my legs do what they were gonna do! Which, was kinda cool, because it seems to work out better that way? I fall back to sleep quicker, I feel my legs more, but it’s kinda startling at first when your body does something you don’t quite know what it is going to do? But I remember, “you’re safe, it’s okay, you’re not going anywhere” and I let it happen. I work not to fight it, allow myself to feel what parts of my body are moving, and go from there.
It’s so interesting how I got such a good workout yesterday with the steel mace bar? Why was this such a powerful tool? All the stabilizers having to kick in? Working on my body’s awareness in space? It also kicked my butt, I was COOKED for the rest of the day, plus woke up feeling absolutely awful from my nap yesterday. Goodness.
Let’s get on the floor today to work on and clean up your chair. He needs a little love. Oh yeah maybe some house stuff too?
Honestly, I think that’s it. Let’s get outside, let’s try to relax on the weekends. Let’s be kind to ourselves. Each week is a long fought battle, that isn’t always so easy. You gotta remember all the good accomplishments and fun activities from even the previous week! It’s hard, but it’s worth it. Slow down, sometimes, to smell the roses. Get outside and try to get some fresh air. That was such an enjoyable evening yesterday.
I gotta keep this left shoulder tucked down when I sleep! My left leg is feeling so much more and activating like crazy!
How come, in the mornings, I’m okay with life, but then as the day moves on, towards the evening, I’m a lot less into “life” in general? What’s this all about? Because last night I went to bed pretty happy. I guess doing the things we like to do, and getting up to stand before bed helps a ton.
In the mornings, we wake up and feel like gods. By the evening, we realize we are just mortals. The amount of setbacks, trials, ups and downs that come with having to live, can really put it all into perspective. I actually did take a minute, to think about all this before I broke down earlier this evening.
Realizing too, we’re not alone in this existence that we call life, is also both difficult, and an amazing experience, wrapped up into a package that I can’t quite put my name on, right now.
10/5/26 – Morning German Talks
Why did I wake up in the middle of the night, and have a whole set of conversations auf Deutsch? Vielleicht es ist von alle diese Jahre mit deutsch gesprochen? Oder vielleicht mir hat diese Sprache nicht vergessen? Ich weiß nicht, aber es ist sehr interessant was ist in unsere Kopf! Warum jetzt? Warum habe ich alle diese Worten errinerung? Das ist alles für jetzt, ich muss auf meinem Bett gehen!
So many ideas! Freewheel modifications with upper strut and ID design….
Letting my body move and get into extension! I am feeling a huge stretch in my left and right obliques, glutes engaging, quads engaging, leg tingles subsiding, and feet and knees pressing out alternately while lying on my right side??? I just let it happen, and went for the ride! I then began to recognize the stretch in hip + glute contract feeling, especially in my low back and all the way throughout my quads and thighs! My pelvic floor seems to also be very engaged! Maybe all that stretching yesterday morning helped!! I just did slow breaths for 5 counts in, and 5 counts out, and let my body move! This was INSANE! I slept pretty good! Getting up in the standing frame for an hour before bed I think is the biggest change that is helping me! This has been huge! It also helped calm me down, recollect my thoughts for the day, and continue to work my body!
I will need to let my body continue to do this! But for now I need to get up and get moving!
This works out to be 3x standing frame sessions, and 1x walking session a day, this seems like a great stack! 1 morning, 1 at lunch, PT, 1 in evening! Let’s keep it up! I also did a ton around the house yesterday with Callie as well!
Notes to add to SCR, we have the capabilities to heal, we have to help facilitate and LET it heal!
Session with Joni legs were doing amazing! Straighter in extension more than ever!
Great session with Ashley too!! Walked a ton with the stim on!
Standing frame after dinner as well!
10/6/26 – “Don’t Take It Too Seriously”
Legs are pushing OUT!!! Everything is engaged! Let’s get moving! So interesting!
I think my stitch in my gum might have fallen out, so I had to add some gauze last night. Ugh.
This is gotta be the most push through my feet and heels I had to date! I think I get a really good routine going! I just gotta keep it up!
GOT UP AT WORK FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! Thank you Justin for helping me out!! This was awesome to help prove out that I could do this, and then get a plan for what I need to do! Turns out, I gotta start somewhere, and 15min was perfect to get the feeling and see what I need to get adjusted with and do! I’m stoked!
“Don’t Take It Too Seriously” – honestly, this quote from the band I was just listening to, really has it right. This saying and phrase has got me rethinking everything! I gotta slow down.
We call it “weight bearing” and that it’s “passive”? But is it really? Is there a mechanism we don’t yet fully understand about being “upright”? Something too, with how we aren’t consciously activating, but allowing the subconscious / autonomic system to recalibrate or do their part? Not sure if there’s something there, but it reminds me too, how important our sleeping position is, which is also not conscious movement?
Reading about Oliver Sacks right now, and boy is he quite the writer and neurologist! He has quite the accolade, I’m excited to continue this book!
Standing frame for 40min, and was able to pass a good amount of flatulence to help my sleep! Last night I had the HIGHEST sleep score since after the accident, to date! This was huge! I gotta keep that up!
10/7/26 – What’s This Workout For?
Wow. Needless to say, sensation increase is HUGE! And I wanna say that the post dinner standing frame session, I think I was already feeling some of these changes! I’m seriously feeling everywhere down there! More notes in the evening talking about what I’m doing, more time in the morning getting up and DOING!!
Also, I am working on the most incredible “thing” in our universe that we know of. And that’s our body. Don’t forget that.
“What are we working on?! What area!? What’s this workout for?!” Therese goes on to say to me about what Romana would tell her, during her classes while she was still in training. She would get all worked up, act silly and like a client, and ask her students, “what’s this exercise for??” In a slightly patronizing tone!
Therese went on to tell me, “Romana really hated this question, because in Pilates, we are working your WHOLE body! Not just single muscle group!”
And boy is she right! My entire body feels so engaged and worked so thoroughly afterwards, it’s great! I feel my body moving in ways he hasn’t in ages, and creaks, pops, and cracks while he’s loosening up and getting ready for the next new movements!!
I made the longest distance yet at PT! This was huge! I was so excited to have been increasing the distance each day! I made it down the first hallway without any sitting breaks! Which was huge! I got up, walked over to the counter, stretched out, and got back up to keep walking, with pretty good stride length and extension thru the hallway! I also was able to maintain a conversation, and was up continuously for 11:40! This was great before the first sitting break, and I rounded the hallway! Kinda crazy how our bodies keep responding to the work we place upon it!
Further down hallway 3, my left hip flexor got tight, for some unknown reason? Unsure if it was hydration, discomfort from something else, or just fatigue in general? So weird?
Afterwards at Pilates I got my hips in more extension than ever before, laying prone, side lying, and supine! This was a huge day for extension work!
I’m continuing my after dinner collections, and I gotta say, everything is lighting up more and more! It honestly feels like only a matter of time before I get these legs holding me up without all this support!? More time on my feet, is only going to help this! It’s scary to say and think, but I can feel it happening inside my body, with each session!
It isn’t really just “healing the spinal cord, is it?” It’s creating an environment for the spinal cord to heal, requiring it to be used and useful, while also helping the area below the injury relearn the activities, one day at a time? Like I said to the student Maddie, we walk every day. We use our bodies every day. Aren’t we just trying to get it back to that state? I feel like a lot of healing is just helping facilitate a state for our bodies that is “normal”? Not some crazy magic potion, but getting it back to square one. How we get back to square one, is honestly the tricky part. What other inputs do I need to do, to help facilitate that?
Today, between:
- standing frame 9am – 1hr
- Standing frame 12pm – 1hr
- PT walking & exercise – 2 hrs
- Standing frame 8:30pm – 45min
- Total: ~4:45 out of 24hr day
Is that helping get my body back to a state of “normal”? What’s the body need or require for that?
“functionally freezing degrees of freedom” – Nikolai Bernstein
Is this the same idea of “distracting myself, with talking, while also trying to walk?
Here’s his analogy, “As an analogy, controlling the four wheels of a car independently is very difficult. Yet, by functionally freezing degrees of freedom (the two rear wheels are only allowed to rotate around one shared horizontal axis, and the two front wheels are also allowed to rotate in parallel around a longitudinal axis, controlled by the steering wheel), a car becomes much easier to control.” – Nikolai Bernstein
Here’s another paraphrase, Movement emerges through continuous coordination between the nervous system, body, sensory feedback, task, and environment.”
https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/conexoes/article/download/8649755/19229/49428
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167945717305717
The Co-ordination and Regulation of Movements (1967), page 127, Bernstein defines movement coordination as:
“the process of mastering redundant degrees of freedom of the moving organ, in other words, its conversion to a controllable system”
I’m pretty sure all of this is to say why the Pilates springs and setups are literally, as Therese says, giving your body information.
… so if springs are giving our body information, what would a spring, mass, damper system do to our body?…..what kind of information would it be giving??? More on this to come!
10/8/26 – Up At Work!
Another huge morning of sensations waking up! Most prominent in the glutes this morning! Yesterday worked my body in hip extension a TON, so I’m not surprised why! I have some research to do today, and some work to put in as well!
MADE IT UP AT WORK! Twice!! Seriously, I can do this! It’s happening! I can’t believe this!! I was also pleased, I was able to be up standing for like, a half hour with Justin reviewing some CAD! This was great!!
Then tried to get up in the lab, to just get a quick feel for it! One step at a time!
It’s also amazing how my body feels afterwards, so much more calm! Not antsy and crappy, so I know I’m doing the right things!
Up in standing frame for the PM now too, at 9:09pm, been up for about an hour! Body is getting better and better with this! Just gotta keep it up!
I really wanna read about Nikolai Bernstein more, I think he’s got some interesting ideas to explore! More to come!
10/9/26 – Mood For Neurological Recovery
Thoraculumbar Fascia. What a fascinating thing? Trying to get my ribs, pelvis, and back reconnected! I guess I’ve been fascinated by the idea of Nikolai Bernstein, and how there are so many inputs that we receive from our environments. I would like to explore this more, get a better understanding so I can make a plan to introduce some of these interesting variables??
Letting my legs kick how they’re going to kick while lying in bed feels more and more interesting the more I do it? It’s ‘playful’ in a certain way? Makes me wonder how our mood affects neurological recovery? Mood + environment + intention = What?
I’ve actually been getting full nights rest, while still waking up to go pee in the middle of the night? Making the trips short, and just going when I need to go, has really helped. Not fighting my body is very useful.
I bet people think information is only traveling from the top down. But what if it’s actually coming from both ways? Top down and bottom up? And if you keep up information from the bottom up, it gives the top down more time to react?!
LONGEST WALK TO DATE!! Did the full lap downstairs in Cramer!! I even made it past the starting point, made my way over to the countertop, and did a lean to stretch out before getting done!! With 2 minutes to spare on the hour as well! That was great!! Thanks Maddie for the help!!
This was huge because I also did it in only 5-6 sitting breaks as well!! Each day a little more and a little more!!
10/10/26 – FlannelFest
Legs are stretching out so much, I have to extend my back out to help get my whole body in as much extension while side lying as I can! Big movement day yesterday! My legs right now are definitely fulling out, filling in, and wanting to get moving each day! I was even wondering about opportunities to get my legs working in extension without the braces? Maybe after a brace session, I try and do some work without the braces? Possibly?
Now after getting up in them at work, I really don’t have an excuse to try to get moving in them every day now! Find a safe place for the wheelchair so it doesn’t tip, and then go from there?
My legs are kicking and stepping while side-lying, and I can feel what my body is doing from the left to right sides very well now! Just need more opportunities for these legs to keep moving!
Have to do some reading and research this weekend!
Time. I’m always struggling with Time. Fitting in activities, research, project work, exercise, time with Callie, time with family, time with friends. Work around the house. Work at work. It’s hard to get all the things in a day that I want to.
Made it in the standing frame, and I did something different for the first time? I was falling into my left hip/ left leg, but then had helped restabilize myself by placing my left hand on the wall. Above my head. I started to push my hand into the wall, rhythmically. Starting with a ten count, and the slowly increasing to 30, and then also eventually moving over 60 counts?
As I would push off the wall, hand outstretched, and pushing into the wall overhead, I would get my torso to laterally flex. While I did this, I would feel my left side, feeling all the peculiarities, and movement in my left side! My left abdomen was freeing up, right side engaging more, and my body realizing this was a safe position! My left glute too was firing better and better, but also more in sync with my shoulder, the more reps I did? It started out very out of sync, and after 30+ reps, I could feel my glutes slowly trying to engage at the right moment, without me consciously controlling them? Maybe that’s a part of the neurological side I need to work? Movement with automatic control?
Back up in the standing frame for the end of today, and just repeated the overhead press maneuver. It’s helping so much! I definitely don’t need to be tight in my lats, upper traps, rhomboids, or anywhere that helps shoulder flexion? I’m trying to keep up the work on it, but it’s just slow to do!? It’s tough! Up in the standing frame, I’m able to work these tight areas, but I’m always amazed at how tight they still get! Every day. Just working them the way I want to be able to move!
Made it to FlannelFest to enjoy the beautiful October weather! Had a blast!
Besides ourselves, who else would be the one to help get us moving? Because, it really does have to be ourselves. Try as anyone might, it’s futile if the person doing the activity, isn’t the one leading the way.
I guess what I’m saying is we gotta be the main drivers of the movement! We can get help, as we should, but it needs to come from deep down inside us! It’s not always an easy livin, but we can find the time to carve out for our bodies, there’s so much we can do in a day!
Leave a Reply