Category Archives: progress

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I monitor my body closely. Listen for the plump in my right quad — a feeling that is finally starting to replace the absence that was there. I can finally move that kneecap. My right leg is feeling used after my walks in my new brace. Warm and flooded with awareness. I am also in the middle of a very clear trend towards reduced nerve pain. I have long stretches of the day pain-free. What a release. Pain used to make my mind so restless, my body so particular. I needed my legs propped a certain way constantly. I needed pillows and chairs and laps and massages and couches for stretches. Not that I don’t crave some of those still.. but I’m laboring less. I can forget it all for half a day and do an experiment, renovate a van. And I’m sleeping so much better, now, too. Waking up early and rested.

Like monitoring my body I monitor my mind. I realize a shift has happened. I’ve added more happiness to the day to day. I found some of the old joys in my new routine. I think I’m more settled into my limitations. Work, right now, is seeming like a game: how can I reach this given I can stand up with that? I have a whole building of puzzles to solve. But, more stark now with this daily shift is my attitude towards the future. The is a widening gap between how much I want each day and how much I want all of them. The rest of them. There is clearly a underlying existential crisis. One grounded in a simple stubborn inability to humbly accept what has happened. I still think the world owes me something. I’m waiting for this story to play out to my liking. Not miracles, but compromise. To combat this, I have been trying to cultivate gratitude. I believe that’s the missing piece. Gratitude being the opposite. The opposite of a chip on my shoulder. The opposite of needing something.

I started this post with a list of details I’m grateful for. Right now this list feels like a spring board to a much bigger list — the list of things I still want to change. So, I am far from being grateful for this life. And I have only a very limited notion of how to get there. Unless making just the first part of a list will work. Unless you can stumble into it by simply persisting.

Or maybe I have what is a real first step. This experience has taught me to be kinder and more accepting of the short-comings of others. I used to have a much lower tolerance for foibles. But my gratitude towards my fellow humans and my constant butting into my own limitations have eased my exacting approach to relationships. I hope. In truth this journal is often aspirational. I tend to write half a step ahead of myself. But only when confident I’ll get there. I wonder what that says about me. …Ok, enough rambling!

The Second Falliversary

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 The two year anniversary (falliversary) just passed. It was... less emotional than last year. It was a week to think carefully about goals and expectations. Due to my habit of journaling and taking photos I was able to remember last year. And last year I was just starting to see my right leg move. But I was also so much less mobile, so much less balanced. Last year I started the tradition of recreating the last photo I took before my fall. From my wheelchair I positioned my legs on the back of a twirly chair and felt hugely accomplished because my right leg was strong enough to stay in position crossed over the left and the left was strong enough to hold both up. This year I got closer: I was able to hoist myself to the edge of my desk and sit on that with my legs up. This was unthinkable a year ago. So in making the comparison, I was happy to identify this progress. I captured the subtle changes that happen so slowly I had forgotten how difficult it used to be to leave the chair. But my right quad, the more obvious and more essential piece, has made remarkably little progress. I am still unable to put my weight on it. I can only do the same tiny kicks from January last year. Maybe an inch higher. Maybe two. 

A year ago, when my quad first started showing contractions, I celebrated and envisioned walking with just two ankle braces in a year. I never excepted so little change. This muscle has been the most unresponsive to everything I do. And there's no functional walking without quads. On my right side my hip flexor, my glute, and my ham string have progressed noticeably. But gaining just an inch of kick height? What does that mean for future walking? How long will I have to wait until it can hold my weight without the knee buckling? Maybe forever. Maybe the data points make a line that never crosses the required strength threshold. 

I got through many of the early days of my injury by imagining my recovered body. By focusing on my progress and on the temporary nature of my weakness. How do I deal with the reality, now that I can see I was too optimistic? I guess, in one way, the optimism has served its purpose. It got me through those first months, the first year... and now I have many more tools, other than wishful thinking, to keep me going. I learned this new body and changed tremendously. And now my new body and my new mind can keep going, progress in recovery or not.  

Anniversaries now serve as a reminder of the old goals I haven't reached.  A conversation with the old optimism. They should be good for something other than that. I don't want Halloween to feel so hopeless. Hopeless but resilient, I guess. I am more durable than I imaged two years ago. Right after my fall it felt impossibly hard to be injured for this long. It felt brutally unbearable to use a wheelchair for two years. But. Here I am. Relatively happy, every day. Still missing some of the highs I used to feel, more routinely. But, overall, myself. 

So, what's the lesson? Be as ambitious as you need. You can't accurately imagine where you will end up with recovery. So use your optimism and your imagination to see yourself as you want, in a year. In two years. Because you need that vision to keep going during the dark times. In the beginning, in the hardest moments, you also can't accurately imagine how tough you are. How you will endure. Exactly how you will get better is unclear. But healing is so subtle and so complicated. You can't understand it. Put it in the simple terms that make sense for you now, and keep going.

638 Days

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It’s easy to write about milestones or trips. But I want to slow down and savor the blank space between. Milestones are flagged and labeled as such by their undeniable physical and emotional heft. But I want to redefine that. How about the milestone of my first lazy Sunday? The milestone of spending another week committed to walking every day? The milestone of going to Pilates again on Tuesday? If we live our life hurrying to the next discreet, dramatic event, we will have wasted so much time. So, in celebration of the bank spaces, in deference to the quiet between social media posts, in search of meaning now and not tomorrow, I present:

What I do routinely, regularly, and almost every day.

I’ve been really happy with my standing progress recently. My morning routine is some stretching on my bed, some leg wiggling aimed at strengthening the right quad, and then standing for about an hour. (I also eat breakfast between those two). I’m currently working on taking my left knee off the foam pad, so that the only point of contact between me and the frame is the right knee. What’s interesting is that this seems absolutely impossible when I first stand up. But after about 30-40 minutes my body has adjusted. Maybe new muscles are firing? And my balance and strength greatly increases. I also do a lot of baby squats and weight shifts. Then I go to lab.

With swimming I’m working both to increase my breath capacity and to transition more power to my legs. Last week I managed my first kick set! I held on to a kick board and propelled myself through the water with just my legs for 50 yards. But that’s a traditional milestone. I also want to celebrate how slowly I swim now. I’m trying to stroke minimally with my arms so that I can focus all my attention on my legs. I’m trying to make sure my right quad and my gluts fire every time. There is a sneaky tendency to learn to forget. Learned obsolescence: a muscle is quiet for so long that you automatically skip it in your new motor pattern. When I just came out of the hospital I did everything with my left quad — the one muscle I had under some control. I have to unlearn and unlearn and unlearn. I think this is partially what happens during standing, too. I initially stand just with my quad and my tight ligaments.

Which brings me to the main mechanism of unlearning: Pilates on Tuesdays. I’ve been going to Absolute Center for a year, now. Thinking back to my first sessions, I have a lot to celebrate. But the biggest milestone is continuing to go. I am still learning and progressing and practicing every week. The result is a relationship with my trainer, Steph, that is rich with mutual respect and understanding. One milestone is trying hard, every time, to appreciate her ability and take advantage of that relationship.

This is a compilation my friend Theo made of some footage of me at Absolute.

And the next vide is fourteen minutes long, made by Steph, and does a good job of covering the range of exercises I do at pilates. What I hope you’ll appreciate from these videos is how carefully we work on alignment and on functional movement. I’ve said before that pilates is the anti-crossfit. The result is moves that don’t look obviously impressive and a distinct lack of grunting. But the result is also a safe, effective movement with a focus on activating the right muscles in the right sequence. And on isolating weakness. The goal is not completion of a certain number of repetitions. I recommend pilates to everyone.