Steppin' it up

So that first walking experience wasn't a fluke, and there were no after-shocks or repercussions as far as pain or soreness afterward.  Since then I have returned to PT several times and have walked further & "faster" each time.

On my next visit I made a circuit around the PT room with a walker, leading with one foot and stepping up to, but not ahead of, the lead-off foot with the following foot.  The visit after that I made it three times around the PT room with the walker, still stepping "up to but not through." 

This morning---after totally dominating standing up out of the wheelchair, . . . why was that so challenging last week (?!)---I began taking honest to goodness full-on steps with the trailing foot moving ahead of the planted lead-off foot.  Did that several times with the walker and then graduated to two trekking poles for several laps and finished with a couple more laps using a single trekking pole, . . . which was kind of frightening with my balance still not where it needs to be.  Was glad to have my PT's hand on a gate belt strapped around my torso just in case I started to topple.  At the end of the session I was sweating and my legs were quaking from the effort.

In my minds eye, I see myself climbing the big glaciated mountains & volcanoes of the Pacific Northwest, . . . Rainier, Baker, Adams, Hood, Olympus, Glacier, Shuksan, Little T, etc, . . . and so there's an interesting little disconnect between that mental image and being tuckered after several very slow laps around a PT room carrying zero weight on my back and with no elevation gain and wearing comfy slippers rather than heavy mountaineering boots!  None-the-less, I savor every incremental improvement and revel in every new "personal best."  This is getting fun!

And it is so easy to celebrate as there is a Mighty O donut shop just across the street from my PT place, so I stop off there and pick up a dozen for the crew at The Mountaineers before catching a Metro bus to work.  Yah, . . . it's all for them, . . . what an altruist!