Watakushi no tomodachitachi wa, konbanwa! The past week or two have been pretty heavy on the suck; let's dig for some optimism. Prepare for a short list.
--Manual chair propulsion practice has been rockalicious since I started using a peg-rimmed chair (that perhaps I will post a picture of eventually). We've been timing laps around the track; 5min/lap is pretty common now, with a record of 4:30 or so. But:
(1 lap/4.5min) * (100m/1 lap) * (1 mi/1620m) * (60min/1h) = (6000/4.5*1620) = 0.823 mph
= turtlerrific. For comparison, consider that walking speed is somewhere around 3mph, and people can maintain 12ish mph for an entire marathon.
Anywho, with some negotiation muscle, I'll soon be trying different projection-enhanced rims that are closer to the style I've been hoping for, and perhaps even power-assist wheels as well. We'll see how that goes. Maybe I'll graduate from turtle to millipede speed.
--Also on the manual chair front, I might get to steal one to take home for a day or two. Then I can check out tolerance during long-distance travel, bed<-->chair transfers, and typical daily whatnot (ADL!) to make sure I can handle it before I actually try to take the complete manuchair plunge. It may be ridiculously difficult, but my power chair days are numbered. If not ridiculous, would it still be me?
--John vs. Wall: jlink wins!
--OT has been mostly the typical pick up/move/stack stuff, along with the classic find-marbles-in-bucket-of-rice. One day I was threading blocks with holes in them onto a shoestring, à la kindergarten macaroni necklaces. My therapist told me I was "pretty good"... You know, like a toddler. Weee.
--I can has Sennheisers?
--Buckethead is going to be in town in about a month. Soon after that, it's Ben Folds. Yesss.
Okay, everything else I have to say is even more whiny and negative than the above, so game over. Thanks for dropping by! Secrets are waiting to be revealed. Word yourself out.
24 August 2008
15 August 2008
yarr!
*exclamation point noise*
Wednesday PT = finally wheeling around in a manual chair with projection-enhanced rims (pirate ship helm style, of course). Not precisely the peg type I've been dreaming of, but pegs nonetheless. Five laps around the track (500m) in the time necessary to do only one or two in the other chairs, even with surgery the day before? Ding ding, we have a winner.
(mostly)
Wednesday PT = finally wheeling around in a manual chair with projection-enhanced rims (pirate ship helm style, of course). Not precisely the peg type I've been dreaming of, but pegs nonetheless. Five laps around the track (500m) in the time necessary to do only one or two in the other chairs, even with surgery the day before? Ding ding, we have a winner.
(mostly)
10 August 2008
time and time and time and time again
In honor of the late superpower and pioneer of funk and soul, I must respectfully say...
Hello there, children!
Courtesy of my perfectionism, I've let news pile up without telling you. Let's get started.
Kicking things off, as of this past week I have been upgraded to four PT sessions each week! Now I'm on a Mon/Tues/Wed/Fri schedule, and it's awesome. Okay, maybe by the end of Wednesday's round I was completely shot. Okay, maybe before Wednesday even started. Oh well. I heart. This means that, combining official session time (4d*3h) and unofficial lunch hour e-stim biking (3d*1h), I'm up to 15h/week for just PT. Throwing in my time downstairs at OT, it's nearing 20h... Doesn't that qualify me for medical/dental coverage or something? ;-)
So what happens with the extra time in the new schedule? Well, MWF sessions are still the newly standard Giger --> (weights, sitting balance, manual chair propulsion, etc.) --> upper extremity e-stim bike. Then Tuesday, with a different therapist club from the other days (which is strange and kind of bittersweet, since my k/a MWF trainer is still there, but with a different patient), we plan to wing it a bit more. This past Tuesday, for example, we still started with the Giger for warm-up/cardio, but then we did a few new tricks on sitting balance, followed by a fairly long bout of manual chair cruising. In fact, since we spent more time in the silla (thanks ali-so!), I managed to wheel three laps around the track - that's around 300 meters, and one more lap than my previous best - with each lap loaded with rest breaks, of course, yet faster than the preceding. Grrr, muscles! Since I'm a lefty, though, and have subsequently built up more overall strength on that side, I really like to turn right.
Otherwise in PT, I'm working quite a bit on the uppers e-stim bike. It tears my traps up sumpin' fierce, but I guess that means it's working... Then with sitting balance, I can sort of nearly barely almost keep myself up with decent posture on my own for a split second? I have little trouble keeping my head up for most of the time (which also tortures the traps); comparing all of this to when I started rehab, umm, you'd notice. Finally, on Friday we did some prone (face-down) work. Equals not comfy plus still improving anyway.
On the occupational therapy front, it's been more picking up and twisting and stacking. One day I sorted a deck of cards. I don't think I'll be playing again anytime soon. We did another mini-eval, too - since I started a bit more than a month ago, I can move my right shoulder/arm about 10 degrees higher, when both in front and to the side. Rock. Still digging for fingers >;-}
Eh, we're done. The Olympics are calling... Oyasuminasai!
Hello there, children!
Courtesy of my perfectionism, I've let news pile up without telling you. Let's get started.
Kicking things off, as of this past week I have been upgraded to four PT sessions each week! Now I'm on a Mon/Tues/Wed/Fri schedule, and it's awesome. Okay, maybe by the end of Wednesday's round I was completely shot. Okay, maybe before Wednesday even started. Oh well. I heart. This means that, combining official session time (4d*3h) and unofficial lunch hour e-stim biking (3d*1h), I'm up to 15h/week for just PT. Throwing in my time downstairs at OT, it's nearing 20h... Doesn't that qualify me for medical/dental coverage or something? ;-)
So what happens with the extra time in the new schedule? Well, MWF sessions are still the newly standard Giger --> (weights, sitting balance, manual chair propulsion, etc.) --> upper extremity e-stim bike. Then Tuesday, with a different therapist club from the other days (which is strange and kind of bittersweet, since my k/a MWF trainer is still there, but with a different patient), we plan to wing it a bit more. This past Tuesday, for example, we still started with the Giger for warm-up/cardio, but then we did a few new tricks on sitting balance, followed by a fairly long bout of manual chair cruising. In fact, since we spent more time in the silla (thanks ali-so!), I managed to wheel three laps around the track - that's around 300 meters, and one more lap than my previous best - with each lap loaded with rest breaks, of course, yet faster than the preceding. Grrr, muscles! Since I'm a lefty, though, and have subsequently built up more overall strength on that side, I really like to turn right.
Otherwise in PT, I'm working quite a bit on the uppers e-stim bike. It tears my traps up sumpin' fierce, but I guess that means it's working... Then with sitting balance, I can sort of nearly barely almost keep myself up with decent posture on my own for a split second? I have little trouble keeping my head up for most of the time (which also tortures the traps); comparing all of this to when I started rehab, umm, you'd notice. Finally, on Friday we did some prone (face-down) work. Equals not comfy plus still improving anyway.
On the occupational therapy front, it's been more picking up and twisting and stacking. One day I sorted a deck of cards. I don't think I'll be playing again anytime soon. We did another mini-eval, too - since I started a bit more than a month ago, I can move my right shoulder/arm about 10 degrees higher, when both in front and to the side. Rock. Still digging for fingers >;-}
Eh, we're done. The Olympics are calling... Oyasuminasai!
06 August 2008
31 July 2008
esiwkcolcretnuoc
Hey, punks. !emit ni sdrawkcab og s'teL
I missed Wednesday's sessions because Monday night I decided getting sick would be a great idea. Boo to that. I'm better now (I think), so hopefully it's game on again tomorrow. Doing nothing and wasting time are indeed my areas of expertise, but such activities are quite poor rehabilitation.
Pre-sick, Monday = grand! Well, okay, some parts were, at least. The evening saw a visit from the Grand Master K (no, not Käpt'n K), a pal from school, who made the inconveniently-not-as-the-crow-flies trek around the lake from the Cleveland area to hang out for a few hours... I believe "rocktastic" would be an appropriate word to describe such a character. He even schooled the streets of downtown Detroit at 11p. eeks.
Continuing anti-chronologically, Monday aft's OT was typical pick up/move around/reach/stack with various objects and locations. It's hard to describe this stuff in a sufficiently exciting manner... They seem like humdrum everyday activities, but that's the idea; further, we're working tenodesis, range of motion, gross and fine motor skills, strength against gravity/with weights, posture, and patience(!), all at once. Anyway, look at it however you wish - I heart.
Before OT, I had a kidney ultrasound. No need to hide your extreme jealousy.
Then Monday morn's PT was also mostly standard procedure. I wheeled around in yet another manual, this time a major low rider. Gratuitous photo:
This one wasn't too bad though, minus the kindergarten-chair-knees effect. As you can see, we wrapped stretchy Thera-Band tubing around the rims to help out with grip - not necessarily the best solution, but effective enough that I squeezed in two laps in the allotted time, twice as far (but still equally as pathetic) as in the two chairs I've tried with completely unmodified rims.
Moving backwards again, Friday was a slight change of pace, as I was paired up with a different therapist for the afternoon. Yes, still Giger and arm e-stim bike, as has become the new usual, but in between was a mix of sitting balance and boxing-style arm exercises. Time to start punching people out. Be afraid! I could smudge your mascara or something.
Other randomness:
--Monday: first time I've ever operated an iPod
--Coincidentally, I saw the real Käpt'n K and friends in Cleveland
--Finally got some stickers (and openSUSE 11.0 64-bit) on the lapster
--A linked list is surprisingly efficient when recursively reversing characters in a string of unpredictable length (thoughts?)
--Blueberries.
No mas para ahora! BTW, I'm sorry I am having trouble keeping up with replying to everyone's comments, but I really appreciate your support, hellos, stories, questions, contributions, and even the occasional mockery... Readers are what elevate this from a diary to a blog, after all, and without any responses, it's really just a lecture. So, hardcore thanks for the interaction, because I'm listening.
TTFN, Tigger might say. Joyeux vendredi à tout le monde.
I missed Wednesday's sessions because Monday night I decided getting sick would be a great idea. Boo to that. I'm better now (I think), so hopefully it's game on again tomorrow. Doing nothing and wasting time are indeed my areas of expertise, but such activities are quite poor rehabilitation.
Pre-sick, Monday = grand! Well, okay, some parts were, at least. The evening saw a visit from the Grand Master K (no, not Käpt'n K), a pal from school, who made the inconveniently-not-as-the-crow-flies trek around the lake from the Cleveland area to hang out for a few hours... I believe "rocktastic" would be an appropriate word to describe such a character. He even schooled the streets of downtown Detroit at 11p. eeks.
Continuing anti-chronologically, Monday aft's OT was typical pick up/move around/reach/stack with various objects and locations. It's hard to describe this stuff in a sufficiently exciting manner... They seem like humdrum everyday activities, but that's the idea; further, we're working tenodesis, range of motion, gross and fine motor skills, strength against gravity/with weights, posture, and patience(!), all at once. Anyway, look at it however you wish - I heart.
Before OT, I had a kidney ultrasound. No need to hide your extreme jealousy.
Then Monday morn's PT was also mostly standard procedure. I wheeled around in yet another manual, this time a major low rider. Gratuitous photo:
This one wasn't too bad though, minus the kindergarten-chair-knees effect. As you can see, we wrapped stretchy Thera-Band tubing around the rims to help out with grip - not necessarily the best solution, but effective enough that I squeezed in two laps in the allotted time, twice as far (but still equally as pathetic) as in the two chairs I've tried with completely unmodified rims.
Moving backwards again, Friday was a slight change of pace, as I was paired up with a different therapist for the afternoon. Yes, still Giger and arm e-stim bike, as has become the new usual, but in between was a mix of sitting balance and boxing-style arm exercises. Time to start punching people out. Be afraid! I could smudge your mascara or something.
Other randomness:
--Monday: first time I've ever operated an iPod
--Coincidentally, I saw the real Käpt'n K and friends in Cleveland
--Finally got some stickers (and openSUSE 11.0 64-bit) on the lapster
--A linked list is surprisingly efficient when recursively reversing characters in a string of unpredictable length (thoughts?)
--Blueberries.
No mas para ahora! BTW, I'm sorry I am having trouble keeping up with replying to everyone's comments, but I really appreciate your support, hellos, stories, questions, contributions, and even the occasional mockery... Readers are what elevate this from a diary to a blog, after all, and without any responses, it's really just a lecture. So, hardcore thanks for the interaction, because I'm listening.
TTFN, Tigger might say. Joyeux vendredi à tout le monde.
24 July 2008
fat half recap
Hey all! It's been a while, no? Here they come.
First of all, massive congratulations to Jonathan Roche on completing last Sunday's Ironman triathlon! Wow. That's a lot of miles of self-propulsion.
Next, thanks to everyone for contributing to Mr. Roche's efforts, and therefore mine, in whatever way possible - I'm secretly a real softie, and reading so many notes saying that you've been thinking of me (and Jonathan, too!) the past few days is and has been extremely touching. BTW, it's still ok to send a donation to Jonathan until mid-August; check out his site or one of my last few posts for the address/method. You're not too late ;-) Again, both your contributions and thoughts are so incredibly appreciated. Try as I might, I don't think I can say that enough...
On to the therapy updates.
OT has been grand. Lots of picking up and moving, of course. My Fri session was moved to Thurs. We played Scrabble for almost 2h. It was beautiful. Then Monday saw some stacking of washers and such, as well as folding towels to work on two-handed coordination. As it turns out, I still can't do laundry. Today (rather than Friday) I went for about 2h again, picking up blocks, putting together a disaster of a pipe-and-joint sculpture, playing some speed Scrabble, and wrapping up with some back/shoulder e-stim.
Since the last update, there have been all sorts of the usual Giger, e-stim bike, weights, and sitting balance in PT. Some changes have been coming around, though. This week I have started spending the "lunch hour", 12p-1p, at rehab on normal therapy days (Mon/Wed/Fri), extending sessions unofficially to four hours at a time. During this extra hour, which comes after my "official" time on Mondays and before such on Wednesdays and Fridays, I can go in and use the e-stim bike semi-unattended if one is free. This is a fairly popular thing to do, as it means patients can do other therapeutic stuff during official session time without missing the benefits of the zap bike.
So what am I doing instead?
Ironically, I do the e-stim bike. Starting last Friday, to be accurate, I've been working on an upper extremity FES cycle, exercising my arms, shoulders, and back muscles. The idea is the same as the leg e-stim bike - synchronized muscular stimulation to pedal a cycle - but this time with arms instead of legs. Many muscles may be stimulated, from forearm/wrist to upper arm to shoulder to back areas; so far, I've been doing biceps (elbow benders), triceps (elbow straighteners), and traps (trapezius: muscles that go from the neck through the shoulders to the back, moving a lot of stuff). While the leg bike runs a full warm up/exercise/cool down in a little over 1h, the upper extremity cycle goes through a complete workout sequence in around 30min (which, trust me, is plenty).
For me, it's definitely a hardcore neck/shoulder task. On one end, the traps are mostly in charge of holding my head up, which is a fair load of work on its own, as they are weak and I have an enormous melon. But then they are also being zapped into submission and expected to help out in the cycling process! eek.
However similar the two may be, though, the uppers cycle is much different from the leg bike. To be honest, the leg bike is a fairly passive exercise; fire it up and then play Wii or something, not exactly putting in a lot of effort because I can't move those muscles on my own. But not so with the arm cycle. Instead, here I'm expected to pedal like crazy to maintain a pretty fast pace, and the electrical stimulation kicks in to keep me from slowing down too much. That is, the leg bike does all the work, but I actively do the work on the arm bike. It's doable, but by the end of the sequence (if I haven't lapsed into "passive" yet) I'm getting shocked at full blast and still not quite keeping up to speed.
Overall, it's pretty much awesome. Sure, it tears my shoulders/back to painmed-justifying shreds. It works my biceps super solid, though - I do basically no stimulation power to them because I have good sensation there, so shocking hurts - and I think the stimulation to the triceps is very important to regaining their strength and control. So in summary, simultaneous ouches and yays I suppose.
Ugh! There are still a few more points to cover, but I'm spent for now. Feel free to go back to doing something useful, and I'll distract you again soon.
First of all, massive congratulations to Jonathan Roche on completing last Sunday's Ironman triathlon! Wow. That's a lot of miles of self-propulsion.
Next, thanks to everyone for contributing to Mr. Roche's efforts, and therefore mine, in whatever way possible - I'm secretly a real softie, and reading so many notes saying that you've been thinking of me (and Jonathan, too!) the past few days is and has been extremely touching. BTW, it's still ok to send a donation to Jonathan until mid-August; check out his site or one of my last few posts for the address/method. You're not too late ;-) Again, both your contributions and thoughts are so incredibly appreciated. Try as I might, I don't think I can say that enough...
On to the therapy updates.
OT has been grand. Lots of picking up and moving, of course. My Fri session was moved to Thurs. We played Scrabble for almost 2h. It was beautiful. Then Monday saw some stacking of washers and such, as well as folding towels to work on two-handed coordination. As it turns out, I still can't do laundry. Today (rather than Friday) I went for about 2h again, picking up blocks, putting together a disaster of a pipe-and-joint sculpture, playing some speed Scrabble, and wrapping up with some back/shoulder e-stim.
Since the last update, there have been all sorts of the usual Giger, e-stim bike, weights, and sitting balance in PT. Some changes have been coming around, though. This week I have started spending the "lunch hour", 12p-1p, at rehab on normal therapy days (Mon/Wed/Fri), extending sessions unofficially to four hours at a time. During this extra hour, which comes after my "official" time on Mondays and before such on Wednesdays and Fridays, I can go in and use the e-stim bike semi-unattended if one is free. This is a fairly popular thing to do, as it means patients can do other therapeutic stuff during official session time without missing the benefits of the zap bike.
So what am I doing instead?
Ironically, I do the e-stim bike. Starting last Friday, to be accurate, I've been working on an upper extremity FES cycle, exercising my arms, shoulders, and back muscles. The idea is the same as the leg e-stim bike - synchronized muscular stimulation to pedal a cycle - but this time with arms instead of legs. Many muscles may be stimulated, from forearm/wrist to upper arm to shoulder to back areas; so far, I've been doing biceps (elbow benders), triceps (elbow straighteners), and traps (trapezius: muscles that go from the neck through the shoulders to the back, moving a lot of stuff). While the leg bike runs a full warm up/exercise/cool down in a little over 1h, the upper extremity cycle goes through a complete workout sequence in around 30min (which, trust me, is plenty).
For me, it's definitely a hardcore neck/shoulder task. On one end, the traps are mostly in charge of holding my head up, which is a fair load of work on its own, as they are weak and I have an enormous melon. But then they are also being zapped into submission and expected to help out in the cycling process! eek.
However similar the two may be, though, the uppers cycle is much different from the leg bike. To be honest, the leg bike is a fairly passive exercise; fire it up and then play Wii or something, not exactly putting in a lot of effort because I can't move those muscles on my own. But not so with the arm cycle. Instead, here I'm expected to pedal like crazy to maintain a pretty fast pace, and the electrical stimulation kicks in to keep me from slowing down too much. That is, the leg bike does all the work, but I actively do the work on the arm bike. It's doable, but by the end of the sequence (if I haven't lapsed into "passive" yet) I'm getting shocked at full blast and still not quite keeping up to speed.
Overall, it's pretty much awesome. Sure, it tears my shoulders/back to painmed-justifying shreds. It works my biceps super solid, though - I do basically no stimulation power to them because I have good sensation there, so shocking hurts - and I think the stimulation to the triceps is very important to regaining their strength and control. So in summary, simultaneous ouches and yays I suppose.
Ugh! There are still a few more points to cover, but I'm spent for now. Feel free to go back to doing something useful, and I'll distract you again soon.
19 July 2008
man of iron
Hey! Follow Jonathan Roche as he swims, bikes, and runs around Lake Placid:
http://ironman.com
You may need to click around a bit to find exactly what you're looking for, but it's worth it.
Nighty nighty.
http://ironman.com
You may need to click around a bit to find exactly what you're looking for, but it's worth it.
Nighty nighty.
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