We can hardly believe a month has passed since we wrote an update: March has been busy indeed! We've been getting a lot of questions about the status of the Lokomat and Chicago travels, which is great, because we have good news to share on both fronts!
The Chicago trip went very well! We were well prepared and knew what to expect, thanks to receiving some expert advice from fellow SCI patients and mentors. One of the benefits of traveling in a wheelchair is getting to skip the security line, but one of the drawbacks is how many transfers you have to do to get to your seat and back again. For instance, when we landed in Chicago, Thom had to transfer from his seat on the plane to a rickety chair (that fits down the plane aisle), to an airport wheelchair, to his power chair. Fortunately, his transfers have become so much stronger that this wasn't a problem.
The conference was in the airport hotel, so we didn't have to brave Chicago winter. (We even managed to fit in a short visit with some dear friends after the welcome dinner.) The conference was informative, but re-confirmed our decision to wait on the baclofen pump. The other SCI patients were all further out from their injury and had a better idea of what they needed in terms of spasticity treatment. Overall, it was an excellent practice for our up-coming trip to France! We did take away a lot from the conference. It was an incredible experience meeting other SCIs and inspiring to hear their stories.
Back home in DC, Thom had his first training session in the Lokomat last week!!!
The circumstances worked out perfectly. A snowstorm had prevented some of the other patients from coming in. Thom is never one to let bad weather to keep him from therapy: since Metro Access wasn't running, Thom called a handicap accessible cab instead to bring him in. When he arrived, his physical therapist told him the Lokomat was finally up and running and they had just gotten off the phone with the Lokomat's designers in Switzerland where they approved the Lokomat open for business! It took about two hours to customize the machine to Thom's dimensions and create his user profile in the system. Now customized to his profile, future sessions can pick up where he left off each time and will track the minutiae of progress. He has already noticed that the Lokomat is good for "gait training" (making strides of the proper length and coordinating the timing of the legs with each other). It is also excellent for warming his legs up and getting the muscles firing. After about 30 minutes in the Lokomat, Thom's therapist had him exit the machine and practice walking with a platform walker suspended from the ceiling in the ZeroG. Thom's left leg can now consistently take steps without assistance, the right leg is close behind.
Thom continues to make progress in other areas of PT and OT, but we will save those for the next post and hope to update these pages more frequently! Thank you for continuing on this long journey with us!
Wonderful news. Thanks so much for the update. Love to you!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the update. God bless you!
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