Holiday Season

I just want to start out by telling everybody happy holidays from the entire Smith family. It's hard to believe we are nearing the end of another year. With Thanksgiving down and Christmas right around the corner, It's amazing at how fast a year comes and goes. It's been three months since our return from our second stem cell trip and my last blog update. Talk about dropping the ball on that one. I tell you it's hard to make yourself do stuff sometimes even though I know that it needs to be done. Like updating my blog and letting everybody know about my progress and my plans for the future.
As soon as I returned home from India it was back to work. I still work out three times a week with my trainers, use the direct current electric stimulus, the FES bike daily, autoambulator gait trainer once a week, asnd have also added standing daily in my leg calipers with the use of my new pair of parallel bars. I have been pretty consistent with all of my workouts, but again sometimes find myself having a hard time getting motivated to make myself do what I know needs to be done. The progress that I have shown has been steady, but nothing that has been really earth shattering. My strength continues to increase in every area, some areas faster than others. There are a few things I have discovered I am able to do though that are pretty amazing. While sitting in my shower/commode chair I am able to draw both my legs in towards each other. I noticed it about a month ago and practice it every night while in the shower. It seems to be getting stronger. Also while do this I actually can feel the muscles in my legs tightening and contracting. This sensation b is relatively new. I noticed recently that I have been getting some good finger movement. This probably do to all the hand writing I have been having to do with in my college class. So, some real good positive stuff going on. On the negative side lets tall UTI's. I have been living with one for the past two months. I have taken every antibiotic you can think of, and two weeks ago was the sickest I have been since my accident. It has been a real battle and really am sick and tired of feeling like crap all the time. We are planning another trip back to India for the middle of February. We feel like the progress has been good and that this treatment gives me the best chance for recovery. That's it for now. As always I will try to be more prompt with the updates. Talk to you soon.