It might not sound like much but Mike assures me that yesterday was a landmark day – he managed to bench-press a broom-stick. Whilst this may not sound very impressive, it actually is on a number of fronts ….. let’s not forget that the expectation even until quite recently was that Mike would never be able to have full reach in his arms on any plane of movement. Firstly, there was a point in time that his arms all by themselves were too heavy for him to lift, and a broomstick weighs in at a good 5lbs! Secondly, whilst he has been able to sort-of benchpress the impressive weight of a broomstick for some time, the last little bit which requires some tricep assistance has been basically impossible. Thirdly, this means he can co-ordinate both arms to kind of do the same thing at roughly the same time! Let’s face it – once you can benchpress a broomstick the sky is clearly the limit!

After a pretty depressing weekend (one year since the accident), it is good be doing stuff again and looking forwards to being more positive again. On a more serious note, Mike is loving being back in to a full “program” and seems to be thriving on being at the gym and doing ‘exercise’ again. For any of you who have seen him since we have returned, he is sitting up so much straighter and has a much better posture. He is loving his morning “stroll” as he insists on getting setup with his sticks each morning and walking from bed in to have breakfast. Unfortunately with how long his morning routine takes, he is often left having breakfast on his own as Ash is already off to kinder but some days we all sit at the table together which is awesome. It is incredible seeing how much his walking is improving just taking a few steps each day. Obviously it is still a long way off being useful to him but if nothing else, it has got to be better for you to get up and move about than just sit around all day!

I haven’t managed to make it in to a gym session yet but I am assured by both Mike and his carers that there is plenty of equipment he can use and he and Pat seemed to have sorted out a weekly schedule with a couple of days of strength work and a day of co-ordination work.

In other exciting news, the hand therapist is awesome!! He has made Mike a couple of “torture” splints – well, that is what they look like! He has also shown Mike some massage and stretches to do and the wonderful Harri is all over these in her sessions with Mike so hopefully this will stop the fingers from becoming claws (as they have been threatening to do for some time now!) without having to increase the drugs any more. There are definitely some messages getting from brain to some of his fingers but it is just a matter of waiting to see if they can become useful. Can’t allow myself to get frustrated that we managed to come across this guy because we happen to have a friend who knows a few physios who recommended a physio who happened to know of a guy who …… anyway, you get my drift – you shouldn’t have to a wait a year to see people like this and you shouldn’t have to be so lucky to find them but anyway, enough whinging – this is one of my pet projects that I will just keep plodding away at — anyone with good political contacts let me know!

Not a lot else to report from here ….. still waiting on house mod stuff to come thru so that we can sort out the house and have somewhere that Mike can get around a bit more comfortably (ie, that he can get into without getting drenched as he gets bogged going all the way around the side to come up the temporary ramp out the back! and one that he can get in to more than 3 rooms in the house without taking out chunks of door frame!). Also, looks like he might be doing some ‘reading’ slots at kinder as some of the kids seem to think that because he is a chair he might not be able to talk!! Anyway, hopefully he can blow that misconception away quite quickly and I think when we sort out a skateboard for the back of the electric chair and he takes in the power-assist wheels that the kids will end up thinking that the chairs are actually pretty cool anyway!

A few interesting things on the agenda for us both which hopefully we will be able to give you more info about in the next week or two – some fundraising, some just fun and some that will hopefully help a whole lot of people with SCI.

Also, Mike’s computer is now setup (I know, only a year since the accident and finally he has something he can use!) and I go back to work in a few weeks so hopefully you will get all your updates now from Mike. I suspect he will be including some gym footage so you can see him in action!