@DeAnn i agree with @EmeraldEyes i think you are trying to spin too many plates & it’s just not possible. Concentrate on a couple of things then add things a bit at a time.
I’m as guilty as the next person. I’m so tired after work I haven’t the energy to do all the rehab i need to. But I’m ok with that as work provides me other things that are important to me too.
Keep going you’re doing great but don’t beat yourself up if something isn’t done. It’ll still be there waiting for you. xx
@pando Hi Roland, that’s a fab picture. Very talented.
I’ve read lots of your posts over the months & seen how you’ve progressed. Lots of frustrations still I know but you’re definitely moving in the right direction.
The guilt around being at home whilst your wife works is a difficult one. I used to feel very guilty as my husband worked & then did so much for me. It bothered me a lot but he always told me it wasn’t a problem. I’m sure yiur wife feels tye same & is just glad to have you there.
Take care.
Ah, you know me well, by now Ann,
yes, she is just glad I’m alive & so am I.
Compared to one year ago, when I was getting 1 hour of sleep every night in January, I’m doing a lot better. Sleep is good now. Aside my unsettled eyelid, and every other day locked-glute, both unexplained mysteries, I’m more settled. Motivation is good, and I since my 1 km milestone I feel I’m on a roll, and sensitivity is starting to take shape…
thx for following me, Roland
Roland I’m so pleased for you .
I wonder whether the walking will lead to a reduced glute problem .
Enjoy being on a roll and don’t be disheartened when it slows and plateaus. Regard that as preparation for the next sprint of progress 
As well as targeting absolute maximum length with your 1 km moving to 1 mi Have you had thoughts about being able to do one or 200 m with less effort? That probably doesn’t add up to quicker, But does probably mean less tiring and more fluid movement . Elegance should be a separate target 
distinct from distance.
The measures of achievement that are about pushing simple boundaries maybe also be the ones that have complex and subtle consequences?.
There are other measures like fluid movement that might have beneficial side effects like if the muscle is being used in the way that it evolved to be it might be less inclined to protest with pain and immobility?
When they’re fit and able our bodies are marvellously capable things.
When they are damaged the same complexity that led to marvellous capability such as the touch required to evoke a lark ascending must lead to all sorts of interacting and reinforcing dysfunctions. Those relationships are as difficult to fathom as ‘what is it that touch in the above sense means’?
Well done and here’s to another pain-free day and the sound of a milestone whooshing past
S.
Thank you, Simon,
yes, you raise a fundamental truth ; I did not accomplish my 1 km with elegance. I got the job done, and now I can concentrate on getting the job done with more efficiency and less expenditure of energy, since the human body is amazingly efficient (unless recovering from stroke or even a simple injury). In fact, if I had no elegance at all, I would not even get the job done. So stage 1 : get the job done stage 2 : refine the process.
In fact, while starting off my 1 km challenge, I was following some great tips given by my physio 2 days earlier ; “heel strike”. Once I remembered this, my efficiency went up by 30%. I could feel the easier stride. In fact, this tip helped me reach 1 km… without it I might have failed. In the big picture, the heel strike probably gave me an extra 3%, but there will be lots of little areas I will focus on to achieve a smoother ride. Your idea to do 200m with less effort is spot on. Only that improvements will happen gradually, in increments, one step at a time. I think the order of progress is 1) Get the job done, in the rough 2) Refine and improve the style. It has to be that way around; just imagine practicing something until it looked smooth, and then walking 1 km… very unlikely.
These are the same steps I would take learning or teaching a difficult passage on the violin. First get the job doe, then refine the style. I’m not a physio, and sometimes we reverse the order, or change our priorities, but instinctively we know when we’ve stumbled across a more efficient way of doing something. The trouble is that I have a long way to go, since Ronald (Roland’s stroke-half) is about as flexible as a piece of cardboard, right now.
Thanks for putting me in contact with Charlotte Vye; we’ll see if it leads to anything. I enquired about joining Linda Radestad’s 2 week rehab course in Cyprus, but at 9.5k euro + hotel, the cost is prohibitive for me.
Thanks for the great discussion, take care, ciao, ciao, Roland
Just in case anyone wishes to follow a little more closely.
My Facebook post for 11th December reads:
“I Walked 920 steps at Blaise castle this morning! That’s about 0.5 km but not without difficulty ; severe paresthesia (pins and needles along the length of my leg) from the first step. Could not do it without my wife’s encouragement!”
Amazing to have doubled my range in a month (actually 920 steps is 65% of the 1400 steps I did on Sunday). Also The “539 Steps” post was on 15th Nov. That was going back another month when I did 400 metres.
Well done great effort 
Hi @pando
If I’d written this reply last week I’d have different stuff to say to what I have now today .
That’s because my understanding was deepened yesterday and I will post about that shortly .
I think there is a general principle in all our recoveries that needs to be better understood by ourselves and our advisors - PT’s etc.
Every PT I’ve ever talked to has focused on quality of movement even when I didn’t have any.
That’s clearly wrong.
You have to get some muscle activation first.
When you’ve got some you work to get more so youre walk - in this case - and its inelegance because you don’t have control is still developing your 1 mile target
Then you refine.
One doesn’t think and study and read books to step on to the ice for the first time it will standard of an Olympic figure skater. One refines through repetition many times.
So i would suggest your 1 mile milestone be something that you work on regularly…
but not the detriment of the ‘elegant hundred yards’ - nor vice versa. Both have a place
If there was better understanding there would be shorter pathways in our recovery journeys. For us that’s opportunity evaporated - and strategies formulated. After a mile do you go for 2 miles or do you go from mile over rough ground?
Ciao
Simon
always interested in your latest thinking, Simon
my physio pointed out a number of bad habits that have crept in. Always, whenever I understand how and why the error, and why the correction is better, it really helps and motivates me to improve.
Right now I’m painting a Train, here’s a little Village in Northumberland called Craster where you can get good Kippers for breakfast
Yeah Chrasta kippers are famous
We’ve stayed right on the harbour once or twice and the fish restaurant overlooking the harbour is very nice
Fabulous painting!!
Ciao
Simon
off topic, are kippers the same as capers? LOL.
On topic…I learned to walk messy first, just walk. I learned standing and everything else the same way. I am getting much better at the eloquence over time, almost without even trying. It is like my brain just remembers the skill once I have gotten the movement going a bit.
Hi DeAnn,
I wonder what Kippers and Capers would taste like together?
That’s good you stand and walk with eloquence. I feel a long way off, still. When you say your brain remembers a good style, was it like learning something totally new ? or like returning to a familiar feeling ?
ciao, Roland
Definitely like returning. So much so, that I have to think to be a bit more cautious as it feels safe and familiar, even though it sometimes is not. Stairs can be fairly easy, or slippery, different size steps, etc… I must proceed with caution but sometimes don’t think to until a near fall. I have to remember to look before leaping in.
Call me lazy for relying on you to look it up. Too much for my brain to contemplate. I forget what I was looking for and get sidetracked. I am very easily distracted, which is why I forget meds or paying bills on occasion. Still working on that! Thank you. That explains why I like capers. I thought they were some kind of seafood, which I very rarely like.
PS Roland, I also took something called Cotillion classes as a teen. Meant for coming out parties and walking the catwalk for beauty pageants in the Southern USA. So walking like a cat, one foot in front of the other, while balancing a book on one’s head to encourage good posture as well as keeping one’s head up. Much like my typing posture came right back when sitting in my chair with an old school keyboard rather than the flat laptop model. All that training may have paid off from retained long term memory.
They are an ingredient of tartar sauce served with fish.
caper butter is Also served with fish
But neither with kippers - at least that wouldn’t be to my taste
Hello DeAnn, did you have a nice partner for your coming out party? Posture/core is key for walking well. Personally I’m aiming for a swagger like John Travolta in the opening of Saturday Night Fever 
No party for me. I am a Yankee. We don’t do that. But I was staying with a friend in Tennessee, who was taking the classes for beauty pageants and modeling, so I also got to attend. She won many pageants and did do some modeling. I could not have afforded a dress for any of that, nor have I ever been pageant or model material. It wasn’t exactly a fun class, but I did learn much that has been helpful in the social realm.
Was she a Daughter of the Revolution too?
