Since I posted that photo of my friends and me from two years ago at the beginning of this month I’ve felt that I should update the blog with an actual entry as opposed to just a picture, so here we go…

I’ve very fortunately progressed to the point where I can stay at home alone comfortably & safely now, and have been doing so since the end of May! Before I felt comfortable doing so I looked into the prices of Life Alert and Lifeline. After getting quotes from both of those providers I began brainstorming alternatives. And BAM I noticed that the Apple watch was available for preorder! The Pops and I went to the Apple Store to preview the watch before preordering one. I found that they have a band that is always attached in a circle form and loosens up by a magnet which was a great option for me seeing as I’m hemiplegic and don’t have full range of motion in my left arm, the wrist that I’ve always worn a watch on. So far I haven’t fallen while at home alone (or even at all, knock on wood), but always having a way to call someone for help if need be gives me a sense of ease. Plus, the Apple Watch has already paid its self off if you compare the price of the watch to Life Alert or Lifeline’s setup and monthly charges.

There are a few downsides to being home alone though, the first being that my buddy from thirdgrade, Michael Onorato, is no longer with me during the week to hang out with and go do different things. As well, without him at home with me I can only do speech and arm exercises. As to be expected, I initially didn’t feel too comfortable doing standing exercises with no one at home to spot me, watch or not even watch me at all. Recently though, I have gained much more confidence in standing alone while doing household activities such as brushing my teeth, shavingmy face or empting the dishwasher for my mom. I have also been transferring from my wheelchair to one of our living room’s wingback chairs by myself to work on my computer for client work…or writing my blog update. I have been very grateful for the fact that I have fully retained all of the design disciplines, as well as the depths of the programs I learned while at Full Sail University.

Something I’m not too grateful for is the blasted heat that Charleston experiences in the summer time. I say this because when it was cooler outside I would do my walking exercise with no assistive device around a neighborhood pond with my dad there spotting me, but 90+ degree weather will really get to me. Since my accident my internal body temperature will escalate much more, kind of like I’m a cold-blooded reptile. The good thing is though that today is the Fall Solstice, so we can only hope that means that temperatures will go down for walking’s sake.

Although I haven’t been walking with no device, except around our house a little, I have been using my single pole offset cane to walk in and out of church, restaurants and a variety of other establishments. The cool part is that I’ve seen my gait pattern’s pacing increasing by minutes at a time, slowly but surely, by using a free app that tracks the position of your phone via GPS and tells you exactly how far you’ve gone in how much time. The reason I feel it necessary for me to use my cane while in throngs of people is that I feel intimidated and scared that someone might bump into me, or something of the sort, and the cane gives me that little bit of security to move forth.

Come next week, I’ll be helping out in another one of Dr. Sara Kraft’s neuro classes with different PT students. She’s also told me about a video that she would like me to be the neuro patient in to help educate every discipline of therapy learning about Neuro Rehabilitation. I will be sure to post about that experience in my next post. While on the topic of videos, I will commit to finish editing the video from the one hour talk I gave to Dr. Kraft’s 2^nd year neuro class’s PT students in April before the end of the year and share it on here!