Traveling with SCI

AB30 Comments

This past week I did something that I hadn’t yet done since my accident. I got on a plane and traveled to a destination, wheelchair and all. I had legitimate fears and questions with the process of air travel: How long would it take to get through security? How would I get on the plane? Where would the wheelchair go? How sore and tired would I feel after hours of sitting in one place?

Having traveled for work and pleasure for a number of years and having logged hundreds of thousands of miles flying, I was well aware of the physical challenges that come with air travel, albeit for a healthy person. I remembered how good it felt to get up in the middle of a long flight and stretch my legs (not to mention do stretching and pseudo-yoga poses in the aisle amidst the strange looks and glances of the other passengers). I knew that sitting for that long didn’t bother me so much because I would often be out for a run within only a few hours of landing. How would all of this work now?

My trip was a modest but still significant 3 1/2 hour flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis to visit my girlfriend’s family, something she insisted had to happen in the warm summer months so as to avoid the harsh Minnesota climate of the other nine months of the year. It was either now or next summer, and I didn’t want to wait that long. So off we went…

In a nutshell, most things weren’t as bad as I expected. The check in, security, and pretty much everything at the airport were smooth. Boarding the plane was hilarious as I had to transfer from my wheelchair to a tiny wheelchair that could easily fit down the narrow aisle. Never mind that even my skinny ass barely fit on the seat as they strapped my arms and legs like I was in a straight jacket and tumbled me down the aisle of the empty plane before everyone else boarded.

The one thing that was as painful and frustrating as I expected was sitting in that airplane seat for the whole time without being able to move my legs around or stand up. Thankfully I was able to sit on my cushion from my wheelchair which eased the pain a bit (and raised me up in my seat so I looked like I was about seven feet tall) but at the end of the day, sitting still for so long and feeling my blood circulation struggle and my feet and ankles swell wasn’t ideal.

All in all, I’m happy I overcame this minor obstacle of air travel, especially since I had such a great reason to make this trip. I was grateful to have my girlfriend there to help me through this process and we had a great weekend together. I can’t say I’m ready for a longer flight anytime soon, but I’m looking forward to the next travel adventure.

Stone Arch Bridge - Minneapolis

Repetitions and rewards

AB30 Comments

As a lifelong athlete, I’ve always understood the benefits of working hard, challenging myself physically and realizing the results of my actions in a relatively short amount of time. I remember being nine years old and amidst my attempt to play every sport under the sun, I became more interested in soccer and decided to step up my game. Like any soccer player, I inherently wanted to ignore my left foot and exclusively use my dominant right foot to dribble, pass and shoot.

One day I was kicking the ball around with my father and he told me, “Son, you don’t want to play like a one-legged chicken. You have to use your left foot and train it to be as good as your right. Only then can you be a dominant soccer player.” It wasn’t easy at first, but I heeded my dad’s advice and forced myself to use my left foot as much as my right. After some time, and many repetitions, I began to notice a difference. My left foot had improved and while it could never be as good as my right, I had engrained a physical knowledge in my soccer skills for years to come. Up until the last time I played soccer, just two days before my accident, I was a right-footed player with a strong left foot.

Another example is when I decided to train for my first triathlon a few years ago. I was a strong enough cyclist and runner but I hadn’t swam since I was a kid and I was mortified at the thought of swimming a long distance. The first time I jumped in the pool and dusted off my freestyle stroke, I lasted maybe six minutes before I was panting and wheezing like a lifelong smoker who had just sprinted a mile. I was frustrated and disbelieving that I could be in good shape yet struggle so much with this new activity. Long story short, I kept at it and although the next few times were almost as painful as the first, I slowly but steadily got better. Soon I could swim ten minutes, then twelve, then twenty and before long, I was able to stay in the pool consistently swimming laps for over forty minutes. (Full disclosure: when it came time for my triathlon, I got in the water and embarrassingly swam so crooked that I ended up way off course, and needed the officials in the boat to catch me and send me back on track. I finished the swim nearly last, but at least I wasn’t out of breath. Thankfully I made up for my poor swimming during the bike ride and the run, and finished my first triathlon in the top ten of my age group.)

Now I’m still aggressively doing rehab for many hours a week and my exercise regimens have become more intensive and (hopefully) more beneficial. But I don’t realize those physical rewards as quickly as I’m used to and that becomes extraordinarily frustrating. So much of my therapy is based on repetition. The theory is that by repeating a motion or movement over and over, we can rewire and retrain the brain and spinal cord to relearn that movement again.

Also, in order to target muscles that I don’t have motor control of, I do exercises that essentially force these muscles to engage. For example, my abs are still too weak to do a situp and the neurological connection to them is still impaired (i.e. if someone punched me in the stomach, I couldn’t flex or tighten my abs). So I do assisted situps, using my arms to pull myself up and consequently forcing my abs to contract. Yes my arms are doing most of the work at first, but over time, those abs have gotten a bit stronger and I use less and less of my arms.

Over time. That’s the problem. I’m used to seeing results quickly. I’m used to hard work and effort trumping fatigue and being able to realistically overcome physical challenges and limitations. I’m used to stories of friends who had never run long distances being able to train themselves over a few months to run a marathon. But with a Spinal Cord Injury, it’s just not the same. I can work as hard as possible (I like to think that I do) and push myself to the absolute maximum every time I’m doing an exercise, but improvement and progress shows itself so, so slowly that it’s painful. I give every rep 120%. I close my eyes and I focus and visualize and push and pull and twist and lift and grimace until my muscles burn and my brain is tired, and I still try to keep going. But ask me if or how I’ve gotten stronger in the last week or two, and I usually won’t have a good response.

To end on a positive note, as difficult as this process is, the reality is that things have gotten better and stronger, it just takes so much time. I can’t imagine what this rehab would be like if I wasn’t already an athlete or if I didn’t have a good understanding of body awareness and how to challenge myself yet remain within my limits. At least with these things going for me, I trust that my body instinctively wants to become stronger and I fully believe that my body desperately wants to walk again, because that’s what is natural and what it’s done for so long. With that trust and knowledge, I will continue to work hard and notice improvements, slow as they may be…