Frustration and Losing Hope ... ???

I was wondering if, or when, it would happen – and it has. I’ve gotten to the point of regularly being frustrated.

I’m not talking about work, or about family, or about politics, or about global warming. While each of those things sometimes is (or can be) frustrating, what I’m thinking about in this moment is physicality and movement.

See, here’s the thing. After I broke myself, when I was laying in an ICU bed, I remember being able to move my left arm, but not my other three limbs. I started at Craig Hospital in a motorized wheelchair. The switched me to a standard wheelchair after a couple days, which I used until I was released. I walked out of the hospital using crutches, and went home with a wheelchair in the car, which gathered dust until I returned it to Craig.

I spent months using one or two crutches to take some weight off of my legs while I was walking – and then moved to hiking poles, because my balance was still pretty bad. I don’t remember specifically when, but there came a time that I could walk without any additional support. I walked awkwardly, and felt like I looked like I was perpetually drunk.

For most of that time I was subconsciously hopeful, and expected that the way I was able to move would continue to improve. And for a long time, that’s what happened – I would regularly notice that some set of muscles was stronger or some movement more fluid than it had been. I subconsciously hoped, and almost expected, that those improvements would continue.

I used to be way more
graceful, less awkward

Recently, though, that subconscious hope seems to have vanished, because it’s been months since I experienced even a hint of physical improvement. And that feeling of frustration was exacerbated when I watched a video from this past weekend of (among other things) me walking – in which I looked almost as awkward as I felt.

Please don’t misunderstand. I am and will remain tremendously grateful that I’ve been gifted with this much improvement in mobility so far. And I intend to continue to try to regain the remainder of what I’ve lost. And simultaneously, it’s tremendously frustrating, when I’m walking up stairs, to have to choose between 1) intentionally being conscious to actively think about which muscles are working and 2) tripping.