TheraSuit Australia - Day Four

Day four started with my usual warm up, massage with arnica oil and stretching

My left arm has never really been worked on before. I have enough movement in this arm to touch things or put it in my mouth, so most therapists leave it alone. It is almost an entirely new experience for me.

 I am still finding the weights to be hard work, In this exercise I have weights on both my arm and legs and I push them both down at the same time. I have never really used my right side before so having to use it for movement feels wrong to me and having the extra weight makes it even harder and more strange.

This exercise is still the one I am most cooperative with. There are no weights involved. It is just Nico showing me how to use my abductor and the medio gluteus muscle groups in order to stabilize the pelvis and loosen the adductors. All the muscle names seem a bit technical, basically it is all the muscles in the top of my leg, groin and bottom. Luckily I get warmed up well!

 I push through this exercise as best as I can, but I am still finding it mighty hard work! There is 3.5kg hooked to the rope on my legs that I need to lift up and hold off the floor. This exercise is sure to be a muscle builder!

Another strenuous exercise for me... Pushing against Nico, while he is pushing his weight against me.

In this exercise I need to push my body out and lift my head up. It is hard to pull myself up like that, but I can do it with effort.

Four point is still not my favourite. I have sand bags on my legs to stop me from stretching out flat. I need to alternate between my arms, stretching out with one and weight bearing on my other. This is what will happen when I start to crawl.

Kneeling on the rockerboard.

This is something I used to do when I was first diagnosed. Spinning in the chair stimulates my vestibular system - I use it to process a lot of my information. It is stimulated by rocking, bouncing or spinning - like Nico is doing with the office chair. My vestibular system has once been described to me as being like a highway jammed with cars. The cars need to be moving for any new traffic to flow freely - so for me to process any new information (skill learning etc) I need to get the highway flowing. Spinning is one way to do this for me. You can also see how well I am processing by the amount of time my eyes take to centre when we have stopped going around in circles! It also helps with learning balance.

At the end of the day I use the very last of my energy to walk to Mummy before I can get out of my suit.