And so the training begins

Everybody keeps telling me, from doctors, to nurses to orderlies to PCW’s that I got to get moving and keep moving. So I get about an hour of physio sometimes a bit more by Valerie the physiotherapist. and I have seen heather the occupational therapist who introduced me to a hand OT who gave me some wrist braces, as my hands were curled and they wanted that to stop. They do give my wrist some support but it has stopped some of my finger movement as I have no strength in my fingers. AS we mentioned my right hand works much better then my left and I am working on bicep and triceps strength in my right arm. I may be getting some custom built ones down the road…though I’m not sure. The left hand needs a little more work can’t move my fingers very much.  I still have a phantom left hand. I can tense up the muscles in my shoulders and if someone holds my left arm at the right angle I can tense my bicep and move an curl my arm slightly, a few cm. before I got here I was having problem with my left shoulder anyway as it was dislocating occasionally I have weak rotator cuff muscles when I moved my hand over my head my shoulder would start to roll out of its socket. What I fear is happening is when they are cranking my arm around now with zero muscle on my shoulder it may be coming out of the socket … I don’t think any more I know it has. So we will se what kind of support they can give me for my shoulder.

My hamstrings and calves which are pulling my toes down which I believe is called drop foot. So they want me to get high top running shoes or something that will give my feet support and keep my toes up.  From what I understand here they are going to continue to work on me …trying to roll over and maintain my body balance…I find it a little difficult concept…I can’t tense my stomach muscles. However with the physio’s assistance I am able to roll over on to my side and support my body weight with my arms. Now for the steener training…

Don’t know if there is a right way to go about this stuff. But I figure if you need a strong bicep you got to do curls…sets of curls to get there. Sam for triceps got to do some arm extensions. To that end I’ve given myself some routines of curls and extensions, and toe extensions, leg raises and then for the parts that don’t move, I try to move them even I just get a flicker in the muscle just to try to get some connection from here to there. Just a little training in perspective …but what it comes down to is I have to keep moving and movement causes strength so I have to start applying that to all the parts that don’t work that well.

~glen