Interesting Experiences

Friday I had an interesting time at therapy.  I began doing my regular workout, but since the crowd was so sparse that afternoon, Steven (one of the therapists) came over to me, asked how things were going, and suggested we try a new step.  When my toes didn't respond as he had hoped they would, he hooked me up to some electrodes and stimulated the foot at the ankle to get it to lift, and along the left side  of my leg to get the toes to splay.  Then he put the device in my pocket and handed me a button to push.  He had me walking up and down the floor pushing the button each time my left foot pushed off from the floor.  Wow!  What a difference that made.  After walking like that for about 10 minutes, he disconnected me and we found that my foot quickly went back to its old ways.  Now, though,  I have a pretty good idea of what that foot should be doing and why I am tending to turn the foot out to avoid the pain of my little toe rolling under when I walk.  One of my exercises now is to stand, practice lifting the front of my foot off the ground and splay my toes.

On Saturday I took one of my most successful runs in quite a while.  I went to the local school and ran around their grassy field again, this time completing over 3 1/2 miles in 29:30.  As I ran, I really focused on keeping my foot straight and trying to splay my toes as I pushed off with my left foot.  Whenever I realized that my mind was relaxing and my leg was getting sloppy, I would focus again on what that foot should be doing and I was actually able to run further, a little bit faster, and with less fatigue.  My 3 mile time was 25:10 which is around 8 minutes and 25 seconds.  I am so thankful for the grass to run on.

Then today, Sunday, I had the most interesting experience of all.  At 3 in the afternoon I decided to take a little nap before going out  to the park with Anthony for some Aerobie golf.  I woke up 30 minutes later and almost fell down when I stood up on that left leg of mine.  It was like I was starting the day all over again with an untrained leg after just 30 minutes of rest.  I have found that mornings are the hardest times to get around as I relearn how to focus on getting that leg working properly for the new day, but I never expected to have to start over after a 3o minute nap.  The fatigue in my muscles from Saturday's run may have had something to do with it too, but it was a very unexpected discovery.  The brain is a very interesting thing.

I discovered my bin of rice in the cupboard this afternoon and am going to try to see if I can fish out the items I have buried in there from last spring.  In the spring I could not find things with my left hand (and my eyes closed) let alone tell if my hand was staying in the bin.  I made one try before sitting down at the computer and was able to not only find something (though it took a few minutes), but also was able to guess what the object was.  I'll let you know if I have any more success.

Thanks for your interest in my story and your continued prayers.