Routines When Out Of Therapy

Y’all I can say, there are many times outside of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy or cognitive therapy. That you need to be living your life all aspect, still while in recovery but expect serious.

After therapy’s, starting out at inpatient rehab my fee time consisted of talking with my mom and dad and some people who were around there. After leaving there, at rehab institute, now Ability KC, when was not in therapy, came home and hung out with my mom and dad.

Y’all this was hard, this was on the family ties as well s me personally. It got hard on a personal level because things were getting worn out with me and my parents fighting the accident and injuries. Trust me y’all, it pained me knowing others all others my age were not locked up serving time or anyone who not hospitalized for injuries was out there meeting new people and living life up.

For so long I was about meeting new people, I in fact had planned on moving to Texas prior to my accident. Now obviously now I am not moving anywhere at all, especially after my accident and getting the motivation going.

Routines at Minds Matter were doing lots of extra stuff in off time and off time when got home from therapy and extra work on recovery on the weekends. You can put in the extra on the weekends to also help with your mood at times. Sometimes, working out can release lots of endorphins that make a person feel good, the trimming lightweight cardio workouts do that for me.

Building a routine that works for you helps, especially when things are all thrown off with spinal cord injury’s and traumatic brain injuries. No, I am not suggesting everyone workout, I am saying that did help me throughout physical therapy as well helped advance me into further advanced stages of recovery.

Mike, therapist Mike was beyond great he happens to be super good guy, good family man and father. I came to learn lots about Mike along the the way, he is a devote Christian and oftentimes would bring up God throughout therapy which at the time of my traumatic brain injury. Y’all, I will be honest I was not in a good place for worshipping God, I still believed and feared God, but felt like his care for my life left. Mike was always good, now I didn’t say anything about that but he was always good about mentioning God.

When I walked the 5K with Mike and Kelly his wife and my mom, at Liberty memorial in Kansas City, Missouri (for those of you who remember and were not to drunk for rock fest used to be there), walking up that hill twice two laps around was a 5K 3.15 miles or 3.2 whatever one. But that was a great walk, I talked with Mike the whole time and felt god to be knocking out a 5K with a therapist who helped me get to where I am at and where I could walk one.

Now y’all, what is so wild is the 1K was after the 5K, this was with Gretchen the main physical therapist I worked with at Inpatient. This felt much shorter than a 1K which is 1.4 miles, but needless to say had great talk with her and was nice to talk with her personally and walk a 1K with a therapist who got me initially walking. I was originally in a wheelchair when I started with her.

Two other therapist I personally did a lot of walking with in therapy but not a 1 or 5K was first Kyle and Khat. I walked quite a bit with both of them, especially Kyle the 6 miles all at once, as well as constantly getting quicker and quicker with him. With Khat, there was lots of struggling with brain injury stuff especially because I backslide almost all the way back and was struggling with so much.

I will say one therapist who did so much more for me than what she knows and certainly knew was that Danielle. She inspired actually, she has a traumatic brain injury, she went onto to get her Doctorates degree from Benedictine College in Atchison. She then went on, to be a successful physical therapist who lived active personal life, also private schools, sometimes cirriculams harder as well she did that after having a brain injury that put her in a comma. She really sparked me to fire on all cylinders and stop Lolly gagging around and to get the lead out, i fell back and into some real bad and toxic habits when working with her for a short period of time. Still to this day hear her saying heel strike toes forward, she constantly was saying that.

Adam, bless his heart at rehab institute for moving me onto the cane when he did I am beyond grateful for that. That later turned out to be huge, also how he worked with me through knee surgery recovery. He was big on range of motion y’all, so whenever you see legging out to a side or showing range on legs I am constantly thinking of Adam and all the range of motion he had me doing.

Mike, I will mention again was big in stretch’s at one point until time crunch and I started stretching before he got there that way could get more done. But he was big on resistance exercises as well as backwards walking.

Much thanks to Hayden and Dani, Personal trainers who worked over at the Ozone along with Beth but I worked with Hayden and Dani, they were great they are at large to thank for all my strength in my legs as well as upper body and core strength. Lots of core work with them, as well as sled work with them.

Much thanks to Khat, she was a cognitive therapist, I did lots of physical therapy type of workouts in sessions with her. Besides that, had to be driving her crazy with my constantly obsessing over who is not allowed in my life. Seriously y’all it was over the top, but much thanks to her real cool lady and I will say she has not always been treated the best and I did not treat her the best at some times either. Many apologies!

Things I learned from these people were many physical therapy exercises as well as some things about the human mind and how some people think. I will say, I used to think that Danielle was nuts for thinking all people most people had some weight to loose, now I think that way but I feel like most have a bit to drop off. I learned lots from Khat about ways I know are not good ways to think that she knows are not good ways to think but she thinks that way. Honestly why I but heads with her on that was I was struggling thinking that way and wanted her to tell me I was wrong for those thoughts not be adding on with her thinking that way to. That was when I freaked out because I then thought all people thought that way.

Y’all, when I say none of this would be possible without God, thats in no way me taking away from my own hard work years of brutally hard and the therapist hard work and the doctors hard work. Happens to be this, God gave me the strength, the drive, the oppurtunties as well he blessed me with the parents who raised me to work hard. Also, to not overlook God’s power and God’s strength. Now y’all I am Catholic, my therapist were different religions I believe that Danielle may of been the only other Catholic, Gretchen is Lutheran, Mikes, home barn church private group churches.

But feeling like there was some religion there in my therapy was a good feeling at times, especially when Hayden started to get religious or back to religion and he talked about that often throughout training. Really y’all these were some of the people I saw the most of after my accident due to therapy’s and appointments.

Now I am out of therapy, I am so glad to be out of therapy and moving in a positive direction with my life. Yes, my career goal changed, but my drive and willpower did not, everything in aspects like those were set hard in concrete.

Thank y’all God bless y’all

Kyle Christiansen