Thursday update

I didn't go to water therapy yesterday...After talking with my Therapist and my Neuro..we all came to the decision to change my water days to Friday and shorten the time to about 15 - 20 minutes. We're changing the day to Friday so that I am not so wore out on my regular Thursday therapy session and also shortening my time so that I don't get so wore out between the exercise and also the water temp.

Well, I did go for the foot drop stim thing today...I first had to go in to PT for my regular re-eval. I am gaining some strength back. Chris the therapist that evals my progress told me that with some of the movements I had gained and with a couple of the other movements I had no progress... So, again, it is a very slow process but I am making some progress..
The stim demonstration was interesting..there were three of us that were the "crash test dummies"

The first lady, somewhat elderly, had suffered a stroke quite some time ago from what I gather..she said she hadn't been able to walk in two years.. Well, she got hooked up to the unit and lo and behold..she was up and walking.. she was so happy and amazed. She was able to get around pretty well with the help of a cane and her therapist assisting her.

Next, it was my turn. The guy that was doing the demo's first wanted to test me to see if I the unit would be able to make my leg muscles "fire" with the electrical stim. At first, it was hard to handle the jolt of the stim..and he was turning the machine up pretty high because I wasn't having much foot and toe movement. He kept trying but there just wasn't much there. With how high he had to turn the machine up I felt like I had electricity shooting out of my toes..it was really weird.

Anyway, he unhooked me and told me to sit and relax for a bit while he had the other lady go through the demo. She was also another stroke patient..and she also had good luck with her demo. She was up and walking very well.

After she was done I got hooked up again. This time he said he wanted to go through and set me up all the way and at least see if it would help me walk at all. So, I got wired up...and stood up and started walking. As I walked he would ask me if I could stand him turning the machine up higher. I told him to go for it.. It seemd that I was able to stand the electrical charge better while I was walking because I was focusing on walking not the stim. So anyway, even with the stim..I still had barely any foot movement at all..my left foot was still slapping down as I walked. As I was getting unwired..the guy told me that he only had a couple of more millivolts left to turn it up until the machine was maxxed out..so I guess...no bananas for me today... It didn't work. Oh well. Maybe sometime down the road.

As I was finishing up there...my therapist came over and told me that the lady that is in the hospital now with TM had come in for her PT session and wanted to know if I would talk to her for a minute. So we were introduced..Her name is Laura and she was very nice..she is totally paralyzed from the waist down. My wife and I chatted with her for awhile..she said that she is going to be there in the hospital until the 21st of next month and has been there since the 14th of July.
We are going to visit with her again this coming Thursday when I go in for my PT session again. I told her I will gather together some information for her and hook her up with a bunch of the websites for her to read.

She seemed sincerely glad to have spoken to me and maybe now not "so alone" with this rare disorder.
So, that was my day today..
Water therapy tomorrow...maybe another update then..
Till next time.