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My Weekly Journal – 04/01 Through 04/07
Monday, April 1, Through Sunday, April 7 – While I’m only going to be doing a video every other week, I do want to keep my weekly journal up to date, so I will try my best to update this weekly journal each and every week so that those of you that are following me can keep up-to-date with what’s happening. This past week was pretty uneventful, compared to most. My work with BioNews Services is keeping me busy, and we are slowly growing our multimedia products throughout the various forums that we run. We recently launched the Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) forum, and since launching this forum on Tuesday, April 2, we have seen tremendous growth with regards to number of page views and the number of new members who signed in and created IDs. With all of this happening, I still met with Emily for my workout, which I’ll talk more about in just a moment. I’m still taking my antibiotic for my prostatitis, but quit taking the pain medications a few days after I started the antibiotic. I’m not one of those individuals that likes to stay on pain medications for a long period of time, especially if I don’t need them.
Last week, when I went for my workout with Emily, she had two students there were going to be working with her. Emily asked me if I would mind if the students transferred me from my wheelchair to the therapy table, but she also said that she would be there to monitor and make sure that everything went safely. Carl had been working with Emily for the past few weeks, and he also worked with me on my exercises as well. Stephen had been there a couple of weeks, but this was the first week that he would work with me along with Carl. After transferring to the therapy table, we worked on my balance exercises. With Emily standing in front of me, on my right hand side, Carl started working behind me and Stephen was in front of me to make sure that I wouldn’t lose my balance. Carl began pushing me forward, backwards and from side to side and we did this for about 10 minutes. After this, Stephen went behind me and Carl came and stood in front of me. It was now Stephen’s turn to help me with my balance exercises. By working with therapy students, I’m able to explain the benefits of working with someone with spinal muscular atrophy, and I told the both of them that if they were in the business long enough, they would probably see more patients with SMA, given the fact that so many of us are on active treatments. After working nearly 15 minutes of my balance exercises, they laid me down on my back and began working on the range of motion and flexing exercises that we do on my knees, legs, ankles and feet. Emily had already worked with Carl on this a few weeks ago, so she instructed Stephen on what to do and Carl and Stephen began stretching me out. My right hip had been hurting for a few days before, so they focused quite a bit attention on my right leg, especially when it came to the hamstring and quadricep muscles. They took my right knee and pulled it close to my chest, and then shifted my knee toward the left side of my body, this stretched out that muscle in my hip along with my hamstring and quadriceps. While I wasn’t necessarily comfortable during this exercise, afterwards, my hip felt much better. Emily is happy with the range of motion that I have in my hips, because many people with SMA have hip flexing problems that you have due to sitting in a wheelchair for a long enough period of time. After finishing the range of motion and stretching exercises on my right leg, they focused their attention on the range of motion in my ankles and feet. With my feet close to my body, they applied downward pressure on my knees which flexed the muscles in my calves. Once they finished with this, both Carl and Stephen had the opportunity to work on flexing my neck from side to side. This exercise is extremely relaxing to me. Sitting in my wheelchair, I have the weight of my head that makes it difficult to look too far to my left and my right, but by laying on my back, the weight has been dispersed and they are able to get better range of motion and flexibility. I really enjoy doing this because it’s not only relaxing, it’s also like getting a neck massage during physical therapy. After finishing with my neck, Carl and Stephen set me back up in a sitting position and we took the therapy ball and worked on my balance exercises while I leaned to my left and my right. This is still a new part of my exercise routine, and while it is a bit more challenging, I’m finding it easier each and every week.The one thing that I will try to do each and every week is to update my website so that I can include the flash briefings that we do during that week. We do three flash briefings per week, one on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. These are the multimedia files that I’m bringing to the other forums that BioNews Services runs. Given the fact that the company has purchased a professional grade microphone and pre-amp for me, the quality of my recordings have really improved. While they say that I have a face for radio, this advanced equipment also makes my voice sounds substantially better.I hope that all of you had a fantastic week. Do something for yourself this upcoming week that will make you a better person. God bless you and I’ll see you next Sunday. -
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