Physical Therapy at the Shepherd Center

After being on the waiting list since about May, I finally got the call that the Shepherd Center was ready for me and i started physical and occupational therapy three weeks ago. It’s going really well but lemme tell u, the shit wipes me out! I’ve been going every Wednesday at 1 and I’m done at 3, and yesterday was the first day that I actually stayed awake for the entire ride home. I am tired fuh so at the end of every session.

When I was diagnosed, I used to go to an arbitrary neurologist. A few years later, I’d started experiencing some things and and my manager at the time suggested that I reach out to the Multiple Sclerosis Society to ask them for a referral for an MS specific neurologist/facility. That’s how I found the MSCA and to this day, I think that her advice was some of the best I’ve received since starting my fight. I myself pass that same advice along to any newly diagnosed person with whom I’m in contact. Well I took that same advice last year when I found myself trying to start up physical therapy again.

Over the years, I’ve had 4 PTs including the 2 knucklehead “in-home” care therapists. Now, in their defence, there’s only so much u can do in someone’s home – ur hands are kinda tied based on the home setup…but barring that, I still maintain that they were still crazaos. But anyhoo, I digress. As far as the other two, I used to go to those facilities. I’m not discrediting everything they each did for me but the experience at the Shepherd Center is completely different. The Shepherd Center is a renowned spinal chord and brain injury rehabilitation facility here in the Atlanta area. The Andrew C. Carlos Multiple Sclerosis Institute resides within The Shepherd Center. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that the majority of their patients have MS. The therapists focus solely on helping MS patients regain mobility, teaching them how to function as normally as possible given their restrictions and circumstances and showing them exercises that could strengthen and possibly retrain those muscles that just refuse to function how they’re supposed to. In a nutshell, their focus is ensuring that MS patients have the best quality of life possible.

And oh the toys! Apart from the standard gym machines, there are so many other machines and pieces of apparatus to help us walk, workout etc…it’s amazing. Now, I get that Shepherd center might be special with the availability of such things so boy am I happy that I am over there. In my next session, I’m supposed to use the AntiGravity Treadmill (AGT). It’s a big spaceship like looking thing but essentially when we go in, it’ll keep us up, so we don’t have to worry about falling or keeping balanced, we can just focus on working those legs as hard and fast as we want. I want to use it, but I’m afraid of how much I’ll push myself and how I’ll be able to function after the fact – nevertheless, I can wait to get in. I can’t even begin to describe what I used yesterday but let’s just say that I walked the fastest that I’ve ever had in a long time.  I even asked Ian if he wanted me to run…he said no. I often say that sometimes when it comes to my experiences and dealing with this disease, I’m too ambitious. Well this PT I have now is ambitious himself and when I told him that I miss my canes because eh no way a walker is cool, he jumped at the chance to let me walk with a cane. I haven’t done that since Novemberish 2015 so I could hardly contain my excitement – hey, it’s the little things! Now, if he didn’t have his stability belt around me, I woulda buss my ass a few times well, and my technique was rhell rusty but it felt so good!

Walkers – who needs ’em…
SIGH!

Stay tuned for next week’s story of the AGT…