Brace off and making progress
/I received permission from my neurosurgeon to take off my TLSO at the end of the three month period. The assumption is that the bones have fused and the spine is less reliant on the titanium hardware (made by my awesome former employer Medtronic's Spine division) So, basically a week and a half ago. Actually, it was to "Wean" it ... slowly use it less and less to adjust to life without it. The first few days were scary and painful. I'm suddenly using muscles I haven't used in three months and I'm pretty wobbly. Naturally, I take the extreme route and go 8 hours without it on the first day. Bad idea. The next day I did it a bit more reasonably and cut it into 4 hour blocks. That worked better.
Without the brace on I can be more aggressive. I can twist. My ability to reposition myself in bed has improved. And I can sit up straight and engage my core. That's one of my top priorities right now -- rebuilding core strength to help with transfers (moving from surface to surface), sitting balance, dressing (like sitting up and putting on a dress shirt so I can get back to work ... no, the only barrier to me getting back to work isn't putting on a dress shirt). I was annoyed during the first three months when people kept saying "wait til the brace is off" ... because I didn't have much choice but to wait. So here we are. It's definitely different. My back hurts in different places. But not having it means not relying on someone to help me put it on or take it off. It's given me independence and freedom. I remember the stress of trying to teach my parents how to put it on, operating under the assumption that they'd be responsible for it. We didn't know I'd end up at Courage Kenny so we prepared for working as a team.
But it's pretty awesome to have it off. I have to relearn everything - starting with balance and transfering. But it also allows me to more aggressively work on strength. Check out these videos -- you saw them with the brace on, but even more aggressive work without it!