Well my therapy ended last week, with the not-so confident ability of walking with two canes as I walk. I like the walker better for now, but I know I can be walking soon with the two canes, hopefully down to one and down the road a little ways without any my aids.
That’s my goal and I will take my time getting to that goal, as my confidence factor improves. It’s still gonna be a while before I take to the streets with two canes. I want to make sure I can navigate my apartment first before I venture out on the sidewalks and streets of our town.
Now that the weather appears to be turning toward the good, I recently took my recovery to another step. I’m now confident walking down my street and taking the bus in town and doing some walking on Locust Street. Perhaps in time, I could see myself walking in town, but I’m not going to push it.
So, why am I walking about a half block to get the bus to go in town?
Well, one it is a confidence factor. My confidence has grown over the many months thanks to the work of Josh and Aaron at the Columbia Health Center’s physical therapy facility. Had it not been for their work with me, it’s doubtful I’d be walking or have the ability to walk any distance at all.
Secondly, I was getting a real bad case of cabin fever. There’s only so much daytime television and playing on the computer one can handle in a day’s time. That might not change in a few weeks when spring training starts, who knows.
So, why I am writing about my ability to get the bus in town. Well, outside of it being a new venture for me, its kind of different.
There were two things that worried me at first. One, was the condition of the street I live on, which like many of our streets in town, isn’t the greatest. Worried about taking a dive on Ninth Street and going down Joe Frazier back in the day when he fought Ali. That wouldn’t be good. Plus, I really wasn’t sure about using the steps to get on the bus, but have had no problem.
Of course now that I’ve started my week day trek on an almost daily basis, there are a couple of other things I have noticed, I’d like to bring to everyone’s attention, if they haven’t noticed.
One, is no two sidewalks in Columbia are the same. They may look the same, but they are raised in some areas the cracks are not always the same. I’m surprised more people haven’t gone down for the eight count, so to speak.
And there was one area I recently walked in, where it look as though someone did some cleaning on the sidewalks with water and it iced up a little. There was no salt or anything placed on the sidewalk and was a lawsuit waiting to happen if someone had fallen.
I’ve also noticed our streets are in not the greatest shape, but then we all knew that, but also, they are in need of a good cleaning. I understand the borough’s street sweeper has been down and will be down for a long period of time, but all of the streets have been punished by the winter mess. That makes walking sometimes a little dangerous.
All in all though, the “new: experience of walking our streets hasn’t been too bad, I just got to be able to dodge the land mines myself and others have been presented.
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