Day 17

January 17. Today was an interesting day! Started off as normal, saw Luke, went to gym and did half my workout seeing as I've had a few days off. After that I went to OT, got transferred into the manual chair, and went to the kitchen to make cookies. Well. I got the ingredients out, and then broke down a bit! If you read yesterday's post, you'll remember Vicky talked about having to say good bye to certain things... whoa hold up, I'm not saying good bye to baking, I love it! She also talked with me about doing things in your own time, and I felt it boiling up for the last couple days, but its not quite my time to get back into baking. It's also about doing certain things again , but in a different way. It'll help when I have my own kitchen, with all the tools I need including my baby, my mixer! The only person that can say I'm ready to do something again is me.

This all wasn't helped by hearing how if I want overnight leave at this stage, I'll still need a hospital bed and a few other things. But that falls under what Luke and I talked about last night, rather than just getting upset about things, like I always do and did with this, we talk about it, and file it under the category 'these are the reasons why the next few months might be shit, but it won't last forever'.

I had lunch time to settle down, and at the end of lunch I got a wonderful surprise... I was sitting in Luke's room looking at my hands, and thinking if there was any way to build up the 'pudgy bit' where my thumb joins the palm of my left hand. Because I can move my right fingers and thumb a little bit the muscle has begun to build back up, but not on my left hand. So, for the first time in a while, I tried to move my fingers,  starting with my thumb. Nothing. First finger. Nothing. Middle finger.  Nothing. Ring finger. Nothing. Little finger... WAIT DID THAT JUST MOVE??!! It moved! My left pinky moved a while back, but it disappeared... and it's back!

So I was off to physio already on a pretty good high and I get there and it took a second before I realised what song was playing...

It's a new dawn,

It's a new day,

It's a new life,

For me,

And I'm feeling good

I didn't know my life had turned into a movie complete with soundtrack! So that kick started my physio session in which I went on the FES bike, functional electrical simulation bike. Megan, my physio, started placing electrode pads on my thighs and hamstrings, and asked me to guess where the other ones go. 'My calves?' Nope it was my butt! Just had to lean forward enough they could just slip in there. Now this bike is a weird experience! It sends currents through your muscles so they are actually contracting rather than passively moving. I was on it for just over 20 minutes and travelled 2.66 miles with just over 40mA of current going through my legs! People with no sensation can have it ramped up a bit more because they just can't feel it but because I could feel something that was as high as I could go. It's a weird feeling, kind of like pins and needles but at the same time not at all! Just so you know my arms didn't do anything, I just put them on the handles for the photo for looks!

After physio I had a quick chat to Naomi, the psychologist and then went and got season one of Push Girls from Kate, my OT, onto my tablet (the iPad kind of thing not a pill!). I've watched the first episode already and it's really interesting. There's 3 paraplegics and one quadriplegic, but they're sassy, sexy women in LA, who say, 'if you can't stand up, stand out!'

Luke had appointments at the RAH, one yesterday and one today, both with good news that he's going well, except one bone in his face isn't healing as well but they're going to leave it for a few more weeks and see how it goes again soon. 

AND MORE EXCITING NEWS!! I CAN MOVE MY LEFT ANKLE A BIT!! Here's hoping it's like the right and only gets bigger and stronger.