I slept better. Actually, it was the first time that I felt like I really even slept through a block of time in nights. I have found, the body to be a most interesting thing. It (my body, the collection of parts) seems to know when it’s ready for more and won’t stop until they get it.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/j6ubg-for-my-birthday-this-year
My left side has needed the most work. Between the original incident, the delays to receive the bar removal, and the undiagnosed non-union in the meantime, my left hip was unable to move or move properly from January 8, 2022 until December 21, 2022. Nearly a years worth of muscular atrophy, scar tissue around the surgical openings, nerve damage, weakness and the spastic effects from the spinal cord injury have slowed my recovery (not to mention the insurance/system issues.)
I could check back the dates, yet it seems like it’s been a month or maybe six weeks since I broke through the tension on the bottom of my foot. Being able to open the “palm” of your foot is key in walking, it may take another year or more to heal the damage on my ankle from having to learn how to walk with my foot clenched, if ever. Yet that was the first step (haha,) in this last burst of progress. That enabled me to finally fully push my knee back while keeping my hips fully upright.
With that in place, my body had started really using the muscles through my left thigh, and in the last two weeks busting the biggest knot has led to a cascade of muscular release. In the first few days, it was amazing, I was healed! Again. I tend to get excited. Yes, they’ve released and now it feels like my body is using the proper muscles instead of working around the locked ones.
There still feels.. well… it feels like a pork chop inside of my left buttocks. I’ve been using the foam roller several times a day to try to squeeze it out of there. A week or two ago I made an analogy to cooked together clump of noodles, and I still think that is about it.
Through the back of my calf and hamstring I can feel a core of tight flesh leading up to the porkchop in my ass. The roller works, yet it is difficult still for me to balance on it. Several hand rollers are also nice, yet difficult to use on myself.
Laying in bed, my nightstand is on the left side, which is good for the exercise, although it hurts, as I often prop myself up on my left elbow and relying on the muscles of my left side to stay balanced. Over the last few weeks, the last few night, the soreness has dissipated and I’ve been able to fully plank on the left side. Past that, I can fully flex the foot and place full weight on it to do push ups and planks, and as of last night, full sit ups.
Fifteen of them in bed, kind of sloppy in the cushy bed, yet I pulled out my old workbench today and was able to do a set of ten full real sittups from perfectly flat. I did five more for a second set but it was too much and I raised the back to the forty-five-degree setting and did two more sets from there with twists – my left elbow to the right knee on one rep, the reverse on the next.
With the back raised it was able to take enough stress out of the exercise and let me almost do it fast enough to call it cardio. More time on the pull up bar too. I couldn’t do any full pull-ups today, so I just tried do “stairsteps” side to side- pulling as hard up on the left side as I can holding for a few seconds, then returning to dead hang before going up on the other side.
My abs are weak, yet notably, they are not burning white hot phosphorous flames. That’s how it was a month ago, I guess I’ve burned through that.
I spent an hour or two today inside a beautiful daydream. Our main character had taken a bold course of action, against all odds and prevailed. Accolades poured from the ether, overfilling his cup and beginning to slowly drip into my own. Flights of fantasy entertain me and I also need to be able to recognize them as that. It seems, life is more often built on long series of slow small moves, rather than anything bold.
I walked a mile today, a good hard mile with good form, mostly. I’ve been trying to work on my cadence, to keep a steady pace and it went well today. I was surprised when the time at the end was a minute and a half over my current PR- it felt like a record-breaking mile.
Several anonymous gifts today and I thanked them both personally (as well as the visible donors!) We’re now over halfway to the first goal and it’s not even my birthday yet.
Tomorrow, I should make a chart or a physical survey of sorts and count the number of exercises I can do. Hmm, tomorrow is the fifteenth too, a good day to start monthly tracking.. I could run a quarter mile, do pushups, situps, squats, and pull-ups.
Other thoughts.. I’ve been walking my mile to the north, from here to Hollywood Street. I measured on the map another mile, to the south to Michigan Ave and back. I think I’ll measure another to the east and west and see if I can work up to doing four miles every day, plus the body exercises. Hmm, maybe that’s too much every day, except the jump rope. I’ve been doing that, well, trying that every day lately.
The plan here is if my body wants more intense core work, maybe I should just do that before I go to bed. It’s time to really start pushing my body.. I’ve got nothing else to do…
Okay.. and finally, thank you to everyone reading my site the last few days- I do appreciate the uptick in traffic. Odds are, you’re reading this on June 15th, the day before my birthday. As you may know, I am running a GoFundMe fundraiser for myself for my birthday., well my birthday is not until tomorrow the sixteenth.
Today I DO NOT WANT YOU TO DONATE (tongue in cheek, you can if you want to.)
Seriously though, for my PRE Birthday gift, I want everyone (that would be forty-six of YOU, as of today) to SHARE, SHARE, SHARE the GoFundMe link. Go to the gofundme site and share it with your social media and ask them to donate the NEXT day, on my birthday.
Friday June 16th will be well a little sad for me, I’ll be on the ground. I’m so close to some of the things, relationships, and activities I desire, it is all yet so far out of my grasp. Use your legs, don’t reach for it. Ha. How many readers get that reference? Let me know on the FB.
Today, my ask? Share the https://www.gofundme.com/f/j6ubg-for-my-birthday-this-year link and ask all your friends to chip in all their donations the next day. Ask your friends to share it too. The hope…. well it’s a bunnies multiplying kind of math problem. If ten people share, then donate that is ten donations. But share it ten times first, then ten times again, and again, and now we’ve got one thousand donations.
How about a game, what is the furthest state you could share this in? Tag a friend from far away and tell them about this guy you know named Jeromy. They’ve probably never heard of me and will likely enjoy watching this train wreck as much as you do.
Time to rest.