Crowds

One thing I have not allowed myself to do since my accident is to get into large crowds. I have been to the movies and to the opera but not to sporting events or street fairs. Last weekend I was offered a pair of tickets to a Husky (UW) football game. Clearly it was time to deal with crowds,
The first issue is parking. Being handicapped allows you to get a good choice of parking but no parking is really close to the stadium. The closest lot is a couple of blocks away. We decided to arrive early and to park by the hospital which has tons of handicapped parking and a lot we have used in the past where the rout was well known. While expensive parking was not a real challenge. The crowds were serious but not terrible and it proved easy to move with the crowd into the stadium. The field is below street level with the main walkway about two fifths up the stands. Handicapped seating was on a wide platform at the main level with wheelchair spaces and folding chairs for companions. About 2/3 of the handicapped spaces were filled with folks in wheelchairs. We were originally seated at the end of the field but once the stadium filled were allowed to move to about the 30 yard line.
It was a great game - the teams were evenly matched, the lead changed hands several times and at no time was the difference between the score more than ten points. In the three minutes Cal got the ball. They were 8 points behind and thus needed a touchdown and a two point conversion to tie the game . With under a minute to go they got to the five yard line first and goal. For four plays the Huskies managed to hold and ended up winning the game in the last seconds.
Getting out of the stadium proved to be a much greater challenge than getting in. Even after waiting for over 20 minutes before trying to exit, there were huge crowds. We struggle to move  into a lane where we had a curb cut to get onto and then out of the street. The biggest barrier was a sidewalk on the way to the hospital jammed with people waiting to board buses. I rolled half on the sidewalk, half over the flowers in the garden, all the time asking folks to get out of the way. One time I accidentally rolled over a man's foot. At one time we took a path through the garden believing it would lead to the hospital without forcing us to go up stairs. I could see that there were no stairs heading up. What I did not see until we got to the top was the stairs heading down that everyone else took, The door to the hospital was locked and we ended up heading back to the crowds on the sidewalk.  Eventually we got to the hospital and our car and decided that we can handle crowds.

Walking with Braces

For the past four sessions I have been working with my orthotist and my physical therapist to get the braces to work properly. For the first time today the orthotist did not show up. I was allowed to put the braces on by myself, a difficult but doable operation. One serious issue is that once I am in the braces, the wheelchair I use is slightly too narrow to allow my legs to sit comfortably. Fitting the leg and hip components together required some delicate timing and positioning since once the legs are tight it is difficult to fit the bars into the hips. Eventually we had the whole package together.
Standing required me to straighten my leg, lock the knees leaving my legs sticking straight out, move a lock on the hips to the locked position, place my feet firmly on the ground, raise myself to a standing position and finally lean back to lock the hips. We immediately discovered that the lock on the left hip refused to move into a locked position. What followed was a frantic search for a screwdriver to smooth the aluminum slide followed by a file for the same purpose. After about 30 minutes we were ready to give up when we found that a lot of force could move the slide far enough. (The brace goes back for further work).

 At last we were ready to go. In the previous session I had started to use a walker within the confines of the parallel bars. Now the therapist was ready to allow me to leave the parallel bars and (with a spotter) wander around the room. I was able to go back and forth a number of times. By the end of the session I was sweating  but did not feel I would be unable to get around the house - especially after I had more practice. I was in some danger of toppling over backwards and it is something I will need to work on. The other thing to watch is that once my leg is unweighted, it is easy to take took long a step and get off balance.
  It is still hard to tell what walking will mean to me. What is very clear it  that I will have to make a serious effort to use this capability and to hone it. There is no question that getting around with braces is going to be harder than getting around with a wheelchair but it is an effort I want and need to make,

Braces

After it was decided in May that I would be fitted for braces it has been an entire summer of waiting. I had a session with my physical therapist and my orthotist both of whom agreed that the best choice was a Reciprocating Gait Orthotic or RGO. The RGO provides support not only for the legs but also has a piece on the back with a large bar which causes one leg to move forward when the other is moving back. My orthotist has been working with me in physical therapy to fit the device to my body.

They spent the first session looking at the leg braces and, after I stood for a while deciding to shorten the legs. Today the legs fit better and we spent a lot of time standing trying to find a perfect balance point. A major issue is that I have some contractures from a year in the chair which make it difficult to fully straighten my knees and legs. I have started more aggressively trying to stretch but full flexibility will take a long time.
The braces lock at the knees and at the hips. The first thing discovered is that the locks at the knees tended to catch on my chair making it difficult to keep the knees locked when I am trying to get up. When I sat down the next issue emerged - namely that the hips refused to unlock. The orthotist, about my size, will try wearing the braces and debugging the issue.
After an afternoon of adjustment, my physical therapist decided that after two sessions I should try walking. I have seen videos of several people with spinal cord injuries walking with rgos. I was impressed with the difficulty people had walking. I was surprised at how large a step I could take - too large to maintain balance easily. After that I walked the length of the parallel bars about four times. Navigating the parallel bars is easy. What things feel like when I am onl in a walker or hand crutches is a harder question.