Phil stretched me at the chairs first. At first my legs were pretty tight but then they started to loosen up. We went over to the Keiser machine after stretching. I think it was the first three stands that I REALLY had to fight to stand. Phil told me to, “Push” and to, “Squeeze.” And I did. My butt is KILLING me today!!! On the fourth stand, I popped right up out of my chair. It surprised Phil. He told me that I should do that EVERY time. As I stood for that fourth time, a woman from the physical therapy part of the center rolled a man in a wheelchair over to the Keiser machine.
Thry both were watching me standing at the bar and she was telling him something. I couldn’t hear them because the music was loud and Phil had his hands at his sides telling me to, “Push” and, “Squeeze.” My legs were shaking as I looked down at him and told him that, “I’m showing off right now” because the man in the chair was watching me standing. I sat and rested awhile. Phil had me stand one more time and I popped right up again. I stood for a little while and Phil pushed me over to the plyo boxes. There were 3 boxes against the wall and Phil broke one down to make a “Baby Bear” box. He put me on it and we did some manual leg curls.
I was REALLY tired. I think having training sessions where I just was stretched were GREAT but I hadn’t worked THIS hard in a while. We get out to my car and I took a deep breath before my first attempt to transfer. I grabbed the car door and stood straight up AGAIN! Even though I was EXTREMELY tired, I was able to sit fully on my car seat. I just transferred COMPLETELY into my car ALL BY MYSELF! AND I am crazy tired! After Phil stowed my chair away into my chair topper, he bent down and put his fist out. I thought for a second and reached my hand out to grab his fist. He pulled it away and said, “Don’t even” with a laugh. Okay. I concede. Here’s to an upswing and actively working again. I put my fist out to fist bump him and he grabbed it, shook it, and yelled, “Joystick!” and shut my door.
i had to drop something off at a friend’s house after Barwis. She also lives in Plymouth but I had never been to her house so I didn’t have the music on as OnStar was giving me directions to her house. I didn’t have the music on because I was concentrating and in the silence I thought back to my first day at Barwis and Mike telling me how we were going to get my muscles firing so I get the response I want from them. He told me that it will be in the overwork of my muscles that we will forge new pathways to my spine to tell my brain how to get the proper response from my muscles because having MS, my spine is all messed up with scar tissue that the signals can no longer get through. I thought that today (yesterday) I got 3 proper responses! So many times I have been trying for that and I’ve just misfired. It’s in the repetition that among all the misfires I will eventually get the proper response I need. Today (yesterday) I got 3 of them. NICE! So it’s REALLY starting to happen now! 3’s just the beginning…