If anyone wants to watch the video of Mike on Sunday Night, Channel 7 have the video on their website.

Click here to watch the video.

Click here for the link to Mike’s Project Walk Story on the Ch 7 website.

A great week again at Project Walk particularly with my brother and dad here to help and encourage.  I have been able to add a lot of other therapy and movement at home, and when we are out and about with two strong sets of hands around.  The highlights for the week have nothing to do with project walk but outings we’ve made.  On Saturday we went and watched the redbull air race which happened to be on in San Diego, where Pete and Dad helped me to walk onto the beach. And even though I couldn’t feel the sand with my feet, it was invigorating.

The other highlight was this morning when again with their help I had a shower without involving commode and stood up for a shower.  It felt pretty good after having sat down for a shower for the last 10 months.  There is a rail out the front of our condo, that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, here is a picture of me standing up holding the rail (sort of) and looking back towards Oz.

At project walk we started to get more focussed on what is weak, with plenty of work on my shoulders and arms, and also on my right hip flexor.  If my body is feeling good, you can definitely feel and see the improvement in the way my body parts are working together.  It has been very frustrating at times as I cannot imagine why my body won’t work the way I want it.  It is a game of patience however, and it is not going to happen overnight or without a lot of effort.  I am putting up with enormous amounts of pain as my bodies nervous system reconnects itself, and I literally have to convince that it wants to.  My time off from project walk over here for the past two weeks has had to involve resting to make sure that I am ready for the next session.  I have one week to go, and I am determined to get to the end of my time without missing an hour.

I am interested to what we will work on this week with it being the last week before we do train-the-trainer.  I am very tired, and physically sore from the work done so far and hope that we can continue to work on the bits that are weak and come home with them as strong as they can be.

I have included a clip on YouTube of me walking with sticks, with hand grips and a trainer assisting me to make up for my weak shoulders, hands and wrists.

I have just finished week 4 at Project Walk and I’ve been really happy with my progress.  I have been working really hard at getting the bits that are working well to work better and the bits that are working badly to work at all!  My walking has been going really well still with plenty of assistance and finally my left glute muscle is doing its job and supporting my body weight when I try and take a step with my left leg planted and stepping with my right.  The next problem is getting the right leg to come through as it is supposed to!  This is where I am sending out a telegraph for my right flexor to join the party!  This muscle group is needed to lift the leg and pull it through so you can place at ready to take a step with the other leg.  Monica and I have placed some more video on youtube with me taking some assisted steps.  One of the videos will show you exactly what I mean.  One of the physical trainers at Project Walk is assisting my right leg to come through straight and telling the hip flexor to do its job.  If you do a search in youtube for “MichaelForbes.org project walk” you get a list of videos that we have taken and posted to this point.

Guided Steps


Climbing Machine


I would like to thank the people that have contributed to the extra sessions that I have been able to take, by Friday afternoons I am completely exhausted.  After the session on Friday, I came home and slept for three hours, got up at and ate dinner, went back to bed and slept for 10 hours!

I have two weeks of therapy to go and one more week working with Moni and Patrick where they will be being trained in how to help me when I return home.  In that two weeks I have high hopes of what I’ll be able to achieve before I return home.  There could even be something as exciting as being able to walk independently with a set of sticks!  The only problem will be how do I hold the sticks with wrists and hands that don’t work?  Maybe we will come up with a solution and maybe not.

Tomorrow my brother and father arrive to give me some assistance for the next 10 days.  I am really looking forward to their arrival, but I think Moni is looking forward to it more.  It has been really hard work for Moni as little Ash has needed entertaining every day.  So guess what Pete, you have a job when you arrive!  We are also hoping to get some more video up on youtube with some extra hands around.  Following Dad and Pete will be Moni’s mum and Patrick to get us through the final stint.  So the next three weeks should be good fun and a lot of hard work with some extra company around.

Hope you are all well and enjoying the posts as much as I am enjoying making improvements each day.  Keep well everyone and see you all soon.

Mike.

Sorry again folks, a long time between posts ……. a few technical issues getting ourselves setup in the new condo — it does have high-speed internet as promised, however, it doesn’t have the modem that you need or the setup details to actually use it!!! Anyway, after a few days of floundering around with that we finally found somewhere that would sell us a wireless card and after a few goes we even got it working!

And since then we have been busy, busy, busy. Mike is flat out at Project Walk 4 days a week and pretty exhausted once he is done there. Ash and I have been busy exploring Oceanside (where we have moved to). It is a fantastic spot except for one small (or very large and heavy) detail — the fact that we are about 20m away from the main Amtrack train line …. i don’t think I have slept for more than 2 hours at a stretch since we got here — the 4:30am service is a our personal favourite – you could used to the sound of the trains but the noise level of the horns that they seem to constantly toot is something else again — I swear the walls shake! Anyway, we are here and there is lots more space and Ash is very happy having a bit of room to move around. Her only complaint is that there is no pool! There is a massive ocean out the front but in her defence it is freezing and not exactly beautiful but we did have a pod of dolphins playing out the front the other morning so definitely a very peaceful spot – well, between trains it is anyway.

Speaking of things sea-like we have managed to drag Mike along to a bit of sight-seeing since my last post … we have been to San Diego Zoo, Sea World, Balboa Park and Old Town. Old Town is my favourite but I need to get Ash eating mexican food (or take a packed dinner for her so we can enjoy a restaurant or two. I can safely say that Ash’s favourite outing so far has been seaworld – although I am not so sure that the Killer Whale will be as fond of her ….. we had been there all day, seen all the shows and were pretty tired when Ash decided that she wanted to see the killer whale show again….. (it is called Shamu – Believe). Anyway, Ash says, no mummy I don’t want to go home yet (mind, she is in her stroller by this stage, with it tipped back and 3/4 asleep and Mike is nearly out in his chair) “I want to see the black and whites again”, when I asked what she meant she said, you know that one with the black and whites and they do swimming, you know, the one called shampoo! Mike and I burst out laughing and decided we had to take her to just one more “shampoo” show. Too cute!

Other than that, lots of time at the playground at the beach (it has the advantage over fun parks of being free!!).  Also, there is another little girl whose dad is at Project Walk on Tuesday and Thursday so I am taking them to the park and for little play dates – was nice to see Ash playing with kids!! I think she is sick of hanging out with mum and dad! Also, she seems to have turned over a new leaf and is keen to try lots more things and is much more confident – maybe my mum was right all along, I should have just bored her to tears so that when we went somewhere half fun she would clamour to have a go. Anyway, she is trying lots of new things and is happy to give most things a try – going on rides by herself and even different foods!! (will wonders never cease!). She went for a ride on “Cowboy” a little pony at the local market last night. Except for the trains, we are enjoying where we are and having a good time.

But just to finish off, had an embarassing little effort late yesterday, bringing Mike home from Project Walk, I decided to drive him down to the harbour so he could see it … he is usually too tired to get out and about much so hadn’t been exploring much. Anyway, I took a wrong turn (easy to do on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road!) and ended up at the army base at Camp Pendleton — oopla! Arriving at the gate with two armed troopers I did a hasty explanation about how I had managed to go the wrong way but was really trying to get to the harbour … they were remarkably good humoured about it – clearly had me pegged as a complete airhead (which I decided was fantastic as they didn’t seem inclined to arrest me!) - embarassingly, they stopped 8 lanes of traffic (at the top of their lungs) so that I could do a u-turn  …. how embarassing! Anyway, gave them a wave and we were back on our way – phew! Needless to say, Mike enjoyed the harbour!

Take care and look forward to seeing you all soon. Video has been taken and has been downloaded (or uploaded) on to you-tube … a couple of links below. More to come soon …

Sit Ups

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=assbZnzRelo

Squats

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q2_bg93sxo
 

Here’s the video of Mike’s little steps in the hydro pool that Mon was talking about in the previous post.

Ashley’s decided that Daddy’s wheelchair is the perfect fairy playground. Just watch her go!