Where did September go?

Hi...so these thoughts have been rattling around in my head for about a month.( Probably since I posted last. I didn’t realize how these thoughts went right along with my last post. ) Not writing is a problem for me. I believe I’ve shared how if I let something simmer instead of sharing I often get emotional and frustrated. I have always been like that. I have years of journals that will probably never be read, and that’s ok with me (most of the entries were ramblings of an angry younger me. Nobody wants to meet her again). I remember starting a blog years ago for the same reason. I’m not sure anyone read that either and again that’s ok. Then I had a moment where I felt the need to change it up so I started sharing on this blog. If you’ve read back to some of the stuff I wrote before I started using this for updates, you’ll read some of the thoughts begging to get out of me years ago. Although the circumstances of my life are different that need to at least attempt to be heard is still there. So this is me just trying to be heard and hopefully encourage someone.

My heart has always been to make those around me feel heard and known. I really believe at the very core of humanity lies this desire...to be heard and seen. I haven’t always been good at that though. Life in general gets busy just happening. I know I’ve shared this before, that’s why grace for ourselves is important. I am still learning how to walk this out where my family and I are at in our lives right now. Last week was hard. I struggled with living grief, as my speech therapist calls it. I tried looking up a definition of the term and wasn’t able to find anything that helped me. I’m guessing the biggest difference between that and ‘normal’ grief is strictly that I am grieving the lack of ability in myself. I’m terribly sorry to those of you who have lost someone you’ve loved. Grief is hard and it can hit any time. There is no way to prepare for it. 

My big grieving moment unfortunately happened in the morning and was totally related to this idea of not being seen or heard. More the heard part. Although I truly believe it was all related to the not writing of this post. About a month ago at physical therapy I had an inkling of healing and how it was all related, but instead of sharing I kept it to myself. Then the next week at physical therapy again this same thoughts. Still no post. Pushing the thoughts out of my head. I would just write them in my journal no biggie. Yeah right...it never works that way for me. I need to share. I needed to share a month ago. Then when I didn’t, well 2 weeks ago would have been a good time. But me being me I still didn’t share and felt unheard. What?? Crazy I know. And I’m the only one right who feels a prompting and doesn’t do it. 😉

So back to a month ago. The thoughts I’m going to share came to light for me, but have been building through out the whole journey. Last month I began to see how it worked together. At physical therapy I had my 1st 10 minute walk on the treadmill. Now it was broken up 10 minutes and at a 0.5 mph. Part of the mental struggle in this journey is to laugh at things like that speed or only, barely, being able to lift a 1 pound arm weight during occupational therapy. Seriously the tears are often really close to falling when faced with such measurable things.

Not that I was some crazy awesome runner before the accident. I think I’ve shared this before, I was working on the couch to 5K app. In 2 years I never made it past week 3. So you see how humorous it is for me to think as 0.5 mph so s-l-o-w. Yes you read that correctly. It took me 2 years to make it to week 3 of an 8 week app. Maybe on second thought 0.5 isn’t so very slow.🤷‍♀️ 

I feel some times I give the impression that I am doing these amazing things with no real struggle involved. I still have 6 therapy’s a week because I’m still a work in progress. I wasn’t kidding about the 1 pound weight. In occupational therapy this week I was working on a therapy table we have in our living room, a few weeks ago I was able to lift a 3 pound weight up over my head while lying on my back. This week I struggled with a 1 pound weight. I seriously almost lost it. I made some stupid joke I was probably the only one to understand just so I wouldn’t cry. It is pretty crazy how quickly my brain can just shut a muscle group off. 

Or how quickly I can get distracted. ☺️ Ok, back to physical therapy a month ago. I had my first broken up 10 minute walk on the treadmill. The first set was only 2 minutes. That is warming up my muscles but also my thinking. Right now it takes a lot of thought to do anything, let alone walk. So I try and spend the first few minutes thinking about moving my left hip, knee, and foot. Then my therapist asked about my goal and we set 4 minutes just to see if I could. I surprised us by doing another 4 minutes after that. With the grand total of 10 minutes. Some things to share about this walk it was my first walk with my AFO (ankle and foot orthotic) or my boot articulated. I had finally been able to have the ankle area cut and bracketed so that my ankle an move in a natural way instead of being straight up and down and stationary. I did have to have some help moving my left leg at the hip. Also I am in a harness to help take some pounds off. The harness at my new place of therapy is not as crazy as when I was an inpatient or with in that first year home. It has taken a little while to trust it’s ability to hold me if I miss a step. Although Matt is there helping out and in 3 years I have yet to fall. I am so grateful for the role he has taken in this journey!

So the next time I had physical therapy I worked on stepping and strengthening my leg muscles. Though at the end of that week I was back on the treadmill. My goal was just to push myself. After some very good timed walks I asked if I could try bumping up the speed just a bit.

So Friday at my physical therapy appointment I did a 2 minute warmup where I make a note of what to think about while walking. Then I was asked my goal. I really wanted to try walking at a little higher speed. It just feels a little more natural than the slower speeds. I would walk until I wasn’t able to anymore. So we get all set up and I walked for 4 minutes at 0.6. Which in the long run(hehe) doesn’t seem fast but I quickly got tired out. After a break I walked another 6 minutes! And that was when I noticed once again how far I’d come in general with my healing. I was taking big deep breaths which falls under the speech part of my therapy. Deeper breaths was something I’ve been working on and it’s really hard to tell how far I’d come without the ability to test that out. The other thing I did during the walk was I held my left hand on the hand bar! The whole time. My hand didn’t just fall off. This piece is occupational therapy. 

Each therapy is very important on it’s own but works so much better and smoother together! As crazy as it sounds having my hand on the bar allowed for the ability to push with that arm as needed. I’m fairly certain that if you were able to measure the amount of pressure I put through that arm and hand it wouldn’t actually be measurable. But my brain felt more stable and secure just having my hand there. To be honest I’m still paralyzed. That is a fact that I will have to continue to accept...for a little while yet. 

It feels so amazing to feel my body began to want to work together! It makes me think about some other thoughts I’ve had this week as I listen to my children. I am important. So are you friend! You are important. 

Just some quick follow up thoughts: I’ve reverted back to don’t think just walk. And I have had the thought "Why do I push myself so hard? Now next week I’ll have to work that much harder. Dummy"

#TeamGavrilides