Watch Out for F-bombs

Both Nicole and I are ready to get me walking! With my new back brace,which is totally straightening me out, my new healthy, noninflamatory diet, and the strength I'm continually gaining in my arms and legs, I am feeling ready to take that next step.....get vertical and practice walking! Nicole is now on a mission to get me one of those baby-bouncers that you put like in a doorway, and the baby can just bounce! We just need something like that for a full sized human! Between the two of us, we gotta know someone who can get creative!!!

Until my baby-bouncer is created, we dove into some other, non-standing stuff. Nicole had me practice raising an inflated blue disc between my hands, from my lap up to Nicole's hands. I did about 10 lifts...it was really dificult and frystrating for me to get both hands to grip the disc properly with open hands. My right hand likes to "fold-up" into a closed fist...it's very annoying! The one good thing that Nicole noticed, was that my hands were squeezing the disc more firmly when raising it. When we had tried this exercise before, I had a very flimsy, shakey grasp on the disc and would constantly drop it. This time, I had a much sturdier hold on the disc.

Since we thoroughly worked my arms on Monday, Nicole had me lean my chair back to work on my legs. First, I raised my right leg up, tried to bend my knee up, and straighten my leg out by pushing my foot into Nicole's resistance. Then, I switched legs. I felt exhausted raising my knee up and doing leg  presses against Nicole's thick wall of resistance! I was trying so hard, that an F-bomb burst outta my mouth! And then came another! I was pushing so hard and exerting so much energy into my legs, my language got quite colorful! Sometimes, you just gotta let the colors fly...it's just necessary sometimes!

But with the curse words came the tears. It was just exhausting for me to be trying so flippin' hard, and be getting the minimal result I was getting. And then Nicole kept telling me I was doing a really good job, which was bs to me. I told her to not play that stupid game with me...don't sugarcoat it just because I'm in a wheelchair. Well, that pissed her off, and she told me that offended her. Nicole told me that she never "sugarcoats" my workouts just cuz I'm in the wheelchair.

So, I pulled myself together, as did Nicole, and we kissed and made-up. And that, my friend, was our first lil tiff! Nicole and I laughed about how awesome it would be to share it in my blog, so here ya go!

After our lil explosion, we went back to working my legs. The muscles in my inner thigh are super weak. So, Nicole rotated my left ankle and knee outwards. While she made sure that my hip stayed in a turned out position, I did leg presses using my inner thigh muscles to push my left leg straight. That was deffinitely a challenge because I had to learn to use a new muscle group.

Then, Nicole did some yoga-style stretches on me. She stretched my left leg straight out to the side, straight across my right leg/hip, and bent my knee up in that position. She did the same to the right leg. The stretches hurt, but they felt good at the same time. Nicole held each stretch for 2 minutes.

Returning my chair to the upright sitting position, Nicole had me do a couple arm stretches. I held my arms straight up, hands clasped together, biceps touching my ears. I worked on pulling my arms back, behind my ears.

Next, I held a tennis ball in my right hand and did a pulsing squeeze and release. This exercise worked my inner forearm muscles. After I finished on the right hand, I switched the ball to my left.

Lastly, Nicole and I played catch! She on a box in front of me, and tossed the tennis ball to me. My double-vision played tricks on me when I was trying to catch the airborne ball. But, throwing the ball was much easier for me to improve. I was able to focus my eyes on where I was throwing, which really helped the direction of my overhand throws. Also, I learned where to release the ball when I throw. It was funny, my final throw ended up shooting out at Nicole like a bullet! She was not expecting the power behind that throw...and quite frankly, neither was I!!!