I’m so excited today. Today is the third time I have been able to walk up more than a few stairs with both feet. It’s a pretty messy thing to look at and takes loads of concentration. Woo hoo . Both feet, who would have thought!

Usually I put one leg up, grab hold of the one that doesn’t work and lift it up the step. Awkward but I get there in the end. Sometimes other people will lift my leg for me. Hey, it’s dodgy as and gives me curry all the time. That’s why I am so excited.

It hasn’t always been that way. Once upon a time I was a runner doing Sydney’s City to Surf. Not every year but I ticked the box! My favourite runs were running down to the beach for a few blocks and then going for a quick dip after work. I remember those times dearly. It was summer time and there was still an hour or two before the sun would set.

Neuroplasticity

At our rehab gym we always talk about the building of neural pathways. Ever heard of it? Yeah neither had I. The term is bandied around our gym all the time there but that doesn’t mean I know the intricacies. I watch amazed as some people walk in with a walking frame and a year later they are learning to jump and run. But it’s no one size fits all. Most of us just do what we do.

I’ve always had in my head the words ‘maintain, maintain, maintain. Try not to have get any more muscle wastage’. So I’ve worked out and worked out with that as my goal. During that time it never occurred to me that this rare event might happen to me. Did I say it before Woo Hoo .

One step at a time (yes pun intended). Hope that neural pathway is a strong little bugga and that one day I’ll be able to walk up stairs like there’s nothing to it.

“Neuroplasticity is the ability to rewire your brain so that you can find new neural pathways for those pathways that have lost their ability to make a muscle move. Every time you attempt to move that muscle, your brain is going to attempt a new pathway to get from your brain to the muscle…The only way to find one that works is by repetition – by practicing the desired movement over and over and over again. Even if, especially if, you have no movement in the muscle”

Overcoming MS – Neuroplasticity How You Can Gain Strength https://overcomingms.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-MSing-link-Chapter-3.pdf

Wish me luck 

Dezzie 2024