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My Weekly Journal – 10/01 Through 10/07
Monday, October 1, Through Sunday, October 7 – This was probably one of the best weeks that I’ve had in a long time. It just seems that everything fell into place and nothing went wrong during the entire week. It kinda makes me wonder what next week is going to be like? Oh well, we’ll just wait and see. The weather was beautiful and I got the opportunity to go outside a few times and soak up some vitamin D.When I went to work out with Laura on Thursday, she had her two physical therapy students with her. Lauren and Katherine worked with Laura during my workout. When I got there, Laura and her students transferred me from my wheelchair to the therapy table. Once on the table and in a comfortable position, I sat completely unassisted for five minutes. I had no side support or back support during this process. Many SMA patients are unable to sit unassisted, and by doing this during my workout, my abdominal muscles are put to the test. These muscles are constantly firing to keep me balanced and I was excited that I was able to do this without too much difficulty. After this, Laura and her students laid me down on my back and they began working on my hamstrings, quadriceps and knees. Stretching my legs and working these muscles actually feels very good. These muscles do not give me too many problems during the day, but as the day comes to a close, my hamstrings do tend to get a little tight, and so the muscles in my calves, so by working these muscles, were hoping to not only stretch them, but hopefully I won’t experience the tightness that normally happens. Also, by stretching my legs, we are also stretching the ligaments and tendons in my knees. Both of my legs have a negative degree of bend, and we are hoping that these exercises will help my legs to straighten out and to be able to lay flatter than they do now. The next exercise that we worked on involved my feet and my toes. I normally have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but you can throw my high tolerance of pain out the window when it comes to working with my feet and toes. These are the most sensitive areas on my body, probably because I don’t use them. Either way, the enjoyment that I had while stretching my legs was rudely interrupted by the pain of my feet and my toes being stretched backwards. Stretching my feet and my toes back toward my body is also painful because I have quite a bit of swelling in my ankles and my feet. The swelling is caused from not wearing feet rest while sitting in my wheelchair. I’m hopefully getting a new wheelchair in a couple of months, so I know that I’m gonna have to wear feet rest to avoid this problem in the future. If you watch my video, you’ll see the grimace on my face as Laura and her PT students work to stretch the muscles in my feet and my toes. After completing all of my stretching and my leg exercises, Laura and her students transferred me back to my wheelchair and we began working on my neck muscles with the resistance band. Since I’m still having a little difficulty with the muscle that controls my head from falling forward, Laura doesn’t use the resistance band on my neck muscle for this exercise. Instead, she places a towel in her hand and then places her hand on the back of my head and pushes my head forward. We do this for as long as I can tolerate it, but we always do at least two minutes worth of this particular exercise. Laura did make a comment that this particular neck muscle seems to be getting stronger because she said that she was having to push my head forward with a little bit more force this week than she had in my past workouts. This made me feel pretty good because I can actually feel this muscle getting a little bit stronger. After this muscle gets a little bit stronger, we will move to the resistance band for this particular portion of my neck exercises just like we do for the other neck exercises.In this week’s video episode, I’m taking my subscribers to workout with me. Laura allowed me to take pictures while we worked on all of my stretching exercises. I put all of these pictures together in a video detailing what exercises we are doing and why we are doing these particular exercises. I’m very proud of this video because I feel I have come a long way in my physical therapy. I’m even surprised at some of the results that I’ve seen after working on the stretching exercises for only a few weeks. My video details which muscles I am working on, and it also gives a step-by-step pictorial example of each exercise. Click HERE to view my video.Please checkout my website. My videoes, podcasts, weekly journal and other SMA related materials can be found there. Click HERE to go to my website.I hope that all of you have had a fantastic week and I hope that you do something for yourself this upcoming week that will make you a better person. God bless you, and I’ll see you next Sunday. -
5 Replies
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Great to hear Michael! I enjoyed your video and getting a glimpse of your PT routine. I have mine tomorrow and will let you know how it goes.
I’d get outside more, but we’re still waiting for things to cool down here in North Carolina. High 80s and low 90s in October!
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Hey Kevin, thanks for the comments. Laura’s PTA (Physical Therapy Assistant) will be massaging my calves next week with deep tissue massage. It’ll be painful, but we’re hoping to loosen these muscles. As much as I’m dreading it, I’m looking forward to it. (STRANGE)…
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I know what you mean. That kind of intense stretching is rough, but it certainly helps. I’m sure you’ll see the benefits eventually.
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Great to see you’re back in the swing of things. I don’t recall seeing, how long are your pt sessions? Looks like you pack a lot into the time you have.
I’m not a big fan of people messing with my feet either. One year someone gave me a foot massage for Christmas. I would have declined it if it wouldn’t have made the person feel bad. It wasn’t horrible, I just don’t care for people touching my feet.
p.s. A little jealous of the warm weather you and Kevin mentioned…sigh.
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We need to have stretching and exercise every day if we want to haven t so much pain like you had Michael.I also don t like to stretch my feet but that is necesarry,so I like most of us tolerat this big pain.Does exercise with you both therapists in same time?
P.S:I m also jealous on you Michael,not because you has warm weather.
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