Big Step Up

As my mobility continues to improve the one thing that has remained about the same is my ability to go up and down the stairs. There have been little changes, my balance while doing them has improved and the action has become almost second nature. As a result I can take the stairs a little faster than I had before but it still seems painfully slow. On Friday I took a big step forward with the stairs.

I finally have a pair of modified shoes that have the correct lift height on the right (2.5") and are still very stable (unlike the first pair made that was tapered at the bottom). Now that I have the shoes I needed, I wanted to try going up and down the stairs just as the average person would. One foot per step. As is often the case when I go to try something new or increase the difficulty in whatever mobility exercise I am doing, there was really no way to tell if I would be successful or not.

Although I have been working on taking the stairs with just one forearm crutch, this was definitely an exercise requiring two. Not only was I able to do the stairs properly (with the addition of crutches of course), it was actually fairly easy. It felt so good to walk up and down the stairs "normally". It was the best feeling to be doing them at a good pace that was comparable to the speed at which any of my friends might casually walk a set of stairs. Like everything I'm relearning, it's going to take practice and repetition before it comes naturally. My therapist had me do it several times so we're already working towards making it second nature. This was a pretty big step for me so we shot a video to document my progress. It will also be great to have weeks, months, even years from now to see how much I've improved since that first attempt.