Treadmills

My therapy has taken a new route. While I will still be working on strengthening the various muscles I use for walking, I'm now going to be focusing more on the walking itself. Anyone who has followed this blog will remember boot camp and my walking on the therastride. The harness system kept my weight in check and let me walk when my muscles were not strong enough to hold me up. Now that I can the harness is out the window. I'm walking using my AFO (Ankle Foot Orthosis) and my own determination. This started because I requested at PT that I could use more practice walking without my canes. Since I have no timeframe for when I'll be able to walk without my ankle brace my next step will be to stop using my canes. So I'm walking on the treadmill, one that has bars on either side in case I need them. My first ever video of walking without canes, I walked for about a minute and that was using my KAFO(Knee Ankle Foot Orthosis), which supported my leg to the hip. Now I'm walking for about 15 minutes, which leaves me completely exhausted. The muscles supporting me are still very weak, causing me to weave back and forth. I cannot walk a straight line to save my life. My favorite new saying:

I weeble and wobble... and I might fall down. But I get back up!

All this walking will be a step in the right direction. I keep improving but there's still a long road ahead. Walking metaphors irritate me when walking is the problem in the first place. Ah well, such is life.