Sproutling

We have had some beautiful weather this past week, though today it is cold and rainy (hooray for rainy, not snowy!). On Tuesday, I biked to work for the first time. It is just about exactly 4 miles each way, and it took me over forty-five minutes on the way there, and about thirty-five minutes on the way back. Part of the reason for the big difference in time between going to work and coming home was the wind– 25 mph winds with gusts around 35 mph mostly in my face on the way to work and at my back on the way home, but the warm wind felt lovely under the sunshine at 68°F.

Yesterday Jeff spent the day at a baby show – sort of a tradeshow where businesses and organizations have booths for things related to babies – in an attempt to recruit potential future subjects for his research. Unfortunately, this particular show was not super well organized and very poorly attended, so it was largely a waste of time. However, with Jeff out of the house I was free to spend the morning however I wanted, and decided to get started on some yard work in the backyard in preparation for spring planting. 

One thing I have noticed is that I am somewhat less likely to test certain limits when other people are around. Something seems challenging, someone else offers to do it, and I accept the help in an attempt to not completely wear myself out. When no one else is around but I still want something done, I am more likely to just do it myself and accept the potential consequences, such as extreme fatigue. When digging into the yard work yesterday, I knew it might mean I would spend the rest of the day and maybe the next day lying on the couch, but it just felt really good to be outside dealing with plants and dirt. I spent a total of about three hours doing hard work outdoors, including raking up some of the leaves and other organic debris that was left on the ground when the snow fell, putting away the winter tools like snow shovels and getting out the spring tools like garden shovels, cleaning up organic debris in some of the garden beds, and even taking down a section of chain-link fence that had long ago lost its purpose.

When Jeff came home from the baby show, he was completely exhausted having gotten up early to get there in time for setup before it opened. I on the other hand was physically a bit sore and tired, but also somewhat energized and definitely perkier than Jeff. This is an enormous shift from where I was at this time last year, and even last fall. I am physically capable of doing things I couldn't do before, and doing more wears me out less. I am excited about what this means for yard work and gardening this season.

Finally, one more exciting development, with a bit of a silly story: Last Sunday night for some reason Jeff said "try doing a jumping Jack!" I responded by saying I could not do a jumping Jack, but started trying out what jumping and hopping I could do, leading to a sort of hopping from one foot to the other. Jeff said "that's sort of like…" and then started laughing. He explained that he was trying to think of a word for what I was doing, and thought there was one, but the word that popped into his mind was "sproutling," and he admitted that that was not actually a word but something he had made up just then on the spot. He then took a short video:

At my physical therapy session on Thursday, I told my physical therapist Ruth the story, and she had me show her this "sproutling" in the parallel bars (where I would have something to grab onto if I started to tip over). Her take on it was that what I was doing didn't need some new name, because it was just jogging. Clunky and inelegant, but jogging nonetheless. Ruth and another physical therapist took me out into the hallway, had me put on a safety belt which they each held on to from one side, and told me to give it a try. I was able to go about 40 or 50 feet at a time, and although quite tiring, it seemed to get a bit better by the end. This is a breakthrough – if I can do clunky jogging for 50 feet, with practice I can do more and better. Being able to do it at all is a categorical shift, and a reason for a lot of excitement!

There have been a number of people who have said that most brain recovery happens in the first year, and after that things really slow down and changes tend to be minor. There are times when it really feels like I've hit a plateau, and I wonder if I'm at the end of my meaningful recovery. But then a change like this happens. Once again, evidence that no one can really predict how brain recovery will go, or how long it will take, and that hope and continued effort can lead to more than frustration and disappointment. So will I ever really jog again? The answer is I don't know, and no one can predict, but the answer is also "why not?" What is there, really, to stand in my way? If it is really a goal of mine, why can't I keep working at it, and keep getting closer to it? As long as I ask "why not" and no one gives me a particularly compelling answer, then my response will be continued hope and hard work.