I went to physical therapy today and Brenda (therapist) said we were going to try to use crutches to walk today.  We went to the area of the gym where they have a mock set of stairs and I stood up from the wheelchair and held onto the rails until I could grab hold of the crutches (shown below).

I was soooo excited that we were going to do this as I’m always excited to try new exercises that will propel me towards independent walking.  AND THEN…. I panicked for some reason.  I suddenly was so afraid that I would not be able to do this, that I would not be able to get past this point.  I felt really mad that I had to struggle to do one more thing that was hard as hell to do!  And then the fear of falling paralyzed me.  I had to ask to sit down and then the tears welled up in my eyes because I felt like a failure for quitting.

I didn’t realize all of what I was feeling until I was on my way home on the Sundial Bus.  I had a chance to look inside myself and figure out what went wrong.   Fear of falling stopped me from making progress.  Fear stopped me from achieving my goals.

Anyway, Brenda was great in helping me to shift my focus by switching to a different exercise but then we went back to the original one except that we performed it inside of the parallel bars.

Having the parallel bars there provided me with an extra safety net which allowed me to focus on what Brenda was instructing me to do.  Annnd, I did it!  Granted, it was not perfect and I still have a long way to go before trying this on my own, but still, I did it with Brenda spotting me closely.

Yeah for me……  Thanks Brenda for being patient with me!