Out with the Old, in with the New

Steve has made a rather big jump in the last several weeks in his functionality.  Just before Thanksgiving he finally got carbon-fiber AFO's (Ankle-Foot Osthesis) to stabilize his legs.  Essentially they consist of a foot plate that goes underneath the shoe inserts, and then a 1/2 inch bar that connects to velcro straps around the calves.  It does several things for him.  It transfers information from his feet to places where he has more sensation, so he's getting much more input about where his feet are.  It also takes a great amount of strain off of his knees and glutes.  He's improved his balance so much that he's down to one cane, and has increased his walk-to-work time from 30 minutes to 20 minutes!  To give you an idea of the balance improvement, his pre-brace balance score was 18% and his score with braces increased to about 60%!  His pre-accident time was about 13 minutes, so this is really amazing.  Finally, we're finding that he's working the proper muscles when he's walking, so his calves are firing more regularly and more steadily.  He's not able to make that happen without the braces because of his balance, so this is really helping to build up his calves.

This is also very hard work, too.  His feet and legs are exhausted at the end of the day, and his body just feels worked.  But the increase in balance and mobility and taking the strain off his knees is so worth it.  We went on the first family neighborhood walk we've been on since the accident -- an hour-long stroll to Biola and around campus.  It was so fun to return to something that is so very us.

Two more gifts during the holiday season -- Steve's braces make it possible for him to get on his trainer bicycle in the garage.  He has a lift that's made for his road bike so that it essentially works like a stationary bike.  It was so awesome to see him up on the bike again, just like he was before.

Possibly the best gift was the clearance to DRIVE!!  We met early this week with Rancho's Driving School OT's.  After some evaluation, training and simulator reaction time, he went out in their training car.  He scored really well, and the very thorough and cautious OT's were confident to clear him for driving short distances. Today I watched him drive himself to work and couldn't have been more proud.  He never, ever complains about his dependence on others, but it made me so thankful to watch him gain some of that freedom back.  

We do still have our reality checks that this is for the long haul, and that some of the damage may yet prove to be permanent.  Here's kind of a funny example.  The other day Steve turned on the seat warmer in our car.  He kind of forgot that his butt has no feeling until he shifted his position and part of his leg that does have feeling touched the seat.  I thought he was going to jump out of his skin!  It was a comical reminder of the sobering fact that there are still no guarantees for complete and total healing.  So we'll continue to walk (walk!!) in that strange tension of these gifts and losses together.  All of it is to the glory of God.