Crawling (Video Update)

Crawling, forward and backward. 

Using Leg Braces to Cross the U.S.

Having used KAFOs (long leg braces) in everyday life for many hours and for many miles, I truly appreciate this article.  Joe Kals has used leg braces for many things, including climbing the Eiffel Tower and completing a seven-month walk across France.  He's now asking for support to accomplish a walk from New York to Los Angeles.

Still Valentine's Day

A Valentine's Day surprise for Sara Conchieri, who was injured in December 2017 and has been in recovery since then.  Her friend spread the word that she would like some encouraging cards - and the results are still coming!  This was a nice story to see.  Please don't forget to think of Sara as February moves on.

Hands and Knees (Video Update)

As mentioned a while ago, I recently came back to official physical therapy after a four-year gap.  With a spinal cord injury, it is all too common to be released from therapy and told to expect no more progress.  (On that note, another thank you to everyone who is helping with my uncommon return to active therapy!)

Lately I’ve had opportunity to work on balancing on my knees.  This week with therapists spotting I was able to go from hands and knees to elbows and knees to my stomach, and them from my stomach all the way to kneeling on my knees against a chair - without assistance.  If all of that sounds small, imagine what it means to accomplish it when you once had no motion or response below the waist, a spinal fusion, and doctors’ certainty that you would never have any movement in your legs again.

So to quote Sir Winston Churchill again:
“[N]ever give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

Brain-to-Toe Connectivity

A headline worthy of more attention: "Half of spinal cord injury patients may still have some connectivity, Australian study finds."

Proprioception - Finding Yourself?

In recent years I have put a lot of thought into the intricate connections between the brain and neural receptors.  In particular, when sensation (feeling) is limited or lacking, it can take quite a bit of effort to find the different parts of the body.  Movement is very challenging when your brain is not sure where it can even locate your limbs.
For this reason, at least for me, learning to walk again has involved visual coordination.  It is not uncommon to see people with spinal cord injuries using mirrors when they exercise or undergo therapy; this is to help them see what is where, so that they can try to connect what they are seeing with what they are doing.
The body’s ability to find or detect itself is referred to as proprioception (proprio- from the Latin proprius, “own;” -ception from the Latin capio, capere, “to take”).  If you can tell where your feet or arms are without looking, then your body’s sense of self-awareness is probably just fine.  With poor proprioception, you may have to help your limbs along by watching where everything is.  Keeping a light on or using a mirror can be important for regaining proprioception and retraining the brain.
Why is proprioception on my mind (pun intended)?  Because I’ve recently been watching as my brain and body really begin to reconnect.  The process has not been easy and certainly has not been intuitive.  Besides looking in the mirror or staring at your feet, there are other ideas for carefully encouraging proprioception or testing brain-body awareness: using textures to try to realign sensations (e.g., rubbing a cloth against your face and then your foot, or beginning at a place where you have functional sensation and working downward/ outward into those where you do not in order to create a continuous sensory pathway), gently putting warm or cool water against different areas on the skin, deliberately thinking through certain movements to remember and “feel” them, and researching muscle groups and mentally “mapping” them, to name a few.
Maybe proprioception is simply a new word for your vocabulary.  Whatever the case, it’s more important than we usually realize, and has more impact than the impression it can make on your Scrabble score!

Recovery Story, In Progress

This is one of the best types of story to post.  Casey Henderson suffered a neck injury while playing football, but it looks like he is now on his way to recovery.  He was able to surprise his team by standing and walking at their state title game.