My leg doesn’t work right.

After telling myself I’d take the PWB process slow and steady, I ended up testing out some unassisted steps in my boot last night and it went better than I thought. I gave myself 5 minutes to shuffle side to side along behind our couch, holding on initially, and mainly focusing on shifting weight from one foot to the other.

That got me over some of the fear of putting weight on my healing side, I guess. I tried a few shuffle steps from there and ended up in the kitchen, then down the hallway to the bedroom, and then I quit while I was ahead.

This afternoon and evening I practiced some more and managed to prepare dinner without any crutches or iWalk…what a treat after so many days stumping around in the iWalk. The best part, though, was my son following me around saying “Look at that! Look at that!” and “You’re walking! That’s good!” Kind of an emotional moment, to be honest. It’s 2 months to the day since my injury and this is the first time I’ve walked anywhere near normally since then. It’s been hard to deal with not being able to be active with my son, so his delight at me moving around - even in a still-limited capacity - meant a lot.

It’s kind of fitting, really. I’m not sure how much of this he remembers, but about a year ago the roles were reversed and I was helping him with PT exercises. He was a little delayed in starting walking, so we did leg strength and coordination exercises every day at home for about 7 months. We used the same timer and checklists that I’ve been using for myself. And ultimately, we were after the same result - learning (or re-learning) to walk.

Still a long way to go, but it’s nice to have a bright spot, that’s for sure.