I did good this week, despite the heat. I walked the hallway in my first real Physical therapy session on Thursday. I love the upright walker.

It has made such a difference for keeping me straight when I walk. I do walk slowly. I am paying very close attention to my hips moving and my feet picking up. I do what Trevor, in the MS Gym, calls pause walking. I take my step, PAUSE, regain balance and alignment and take the next step. It starts to go faster than it sounds the more you practice. I walked the whole hallway without once needing to stop and fix my sock that I’ve literally dragged off my foot. I didn’t even do that hip drag around that some of us have to compensate our inability to lift our feet. I very purposely and methodically walked using the hip, knees and feet.

I did really good. I was super impressed. When my physical therapist was last here in January, I walked the hallway too. He’d have to fix my socks at least twice because of the drag in my feet. My arms would be aching because I had so much pressure on them to hold me up. After walking I was usually extremely fatigued. Not this time. I was in good shape. Hopefully I wasn’t just having a really good MS day because I was so proud of myself. I attributed a lot of this to the work I’ve done in the MS Gym. I’ve focused so much on my hips and pelvis. I’ve been working to strengthen these muscles daily. Lifting from the hip to walk is a major goal of mine. I guess I’ll know soon enough since I have therapy 2 times a week. I’ll be walking a lot. However I can say that I’ve been doing the same thing when I practice on shorter walks so I don’t think it was just a good MS day. I think I actually have worked hard and it is paying off. I like that idea much better too. I haven’t necessarily improve, I just really learned how to walk.