Life at Spaulding

My new room is located directly across the hallway from my old room. It's a double room on the wrong floor; however, we were promised that the vacant bed would not be filled and that I would be monitored by the doctors / therapists from the ninth floor, which handle the spinal cord injury patients. So all is well, and I quickly settled back into my new home away from home.

Monday was mostly a skills assessment / therapist introduction day and Tuesday we jumped head first into my therapy. I've been walking, using exercise machines, lifting weights, practicing balancing exercises and learning various other techniques to either compensate or strengthen muscles that have become de-conditioned. All I can really say is that I am extremely sore and have been able to really push myself with very little pain.

It's truly amazing at how much you can push your body in the absence of pain. In my first visit to Spaulding I was in so much pain that I couldn't do anything. It's a great feeling to make progress in my therapy and everyday the exercises get a little easier, I can walk a little further and my legs can carry a little more weight. I've even started to practice stairs (one of the major bottlenecks to returning home) and today I climbed 120 steps!