Sunshine 2's Keep On Moving thread - March

[agate]

Thanks, Virginia--it helps to have you in the cheering section! And I'm looking up your remarks here about how you do the step-ups and planning to copy your method as stepping up to my stepstool is very wobbly lately. I had to do quite a bit of that in connection with the inspection (cleaning the top of the refrigerator, for instance, which I can't see but others can) and each time I had to think and plan very carefully just to lift one foot up onto the stepstool, and then the other. The left leg just doesn't want to cooperate.

I think I can do some exercises using that stepstool without going out in the hall to use the actual stairs.

[Virginia]

Agate, that is one of the best ones you can do. I find I also get a little cardio and arm exercise from it, if I do 12 to 15 reps each leg. My inside steps are not easy steps to climb. I always felt they were a little steep, so it could be that the step I am using is a tad bit higher than most inside steps.

[agate]

Virginia, I tried the step-up-step-down exercise using my little plastic stepstool and found that I couldn't do it at all. I just couldn't lift my left foot off the ground. Sometimes I am able to use it though, and so it must have been a bad day or a bad time of day for me just then.

The first trial was using the kitchen counter top to hang onto. When I took the stepstool into the bathroom and used the handrails that are there, it was much easier though still difficult.

I measured the height of that stool, and it is 10 inches. The first step of my two-step stepladder is 9 inches off the ground.

I'm going to measure the steps out in the hall soon. I'm very keen on being able to step up onto stepstools as needed because I do have to do that at times.

[agate]

Here is the second part of the "Keep On Moving" sit-to-stand video from CanDo MS:

[Virginia]

Agate, I think the step I use is only about 8 inches. I pull on my banister and that is how I do it. It is a pretty good work out for me by the time I step up and back down at least 15 times with each foot. I couldn't do it fast unless I had something sturdy to hold on to.

I did my exercises this morning and then went to get my hair done then to Ace Hardware to pick up a few things, then to the grocery store. So I got a pretty good work out today or at least I moved around some.

Thanks for posting the last half of that video. Since it is late here I am going to wait until tomorrow to watch it.

[agate]

In that second video link, the actual sit-to-stand demonstration starts at 9:55 in the video but the squat exercise just before that looks helpful too.

[Virginia]

The PT who assessed me liked the squats and sits to stands best of all, but emphasized that all the ones I do are very important for different leg muscles.

[agate]

I'm hoping that this image will transfer over here. ...

[Virginia]

Is that Max? Actually, it looks like me.

[agate]

Is there a cat named Max? I'm sorry I haven't heard of him. This cat is just a cartoon someone posted on Facebook from a Website called On the Prowl Cat Cartoons.

[Virginia]

Actually, I meant to say Sam. Max was a cat where I use to work that laid in my inbox a lot. I couldn't get to my work, but I didn't want to disturb him. Sometime he would lay for a whole morning or a whole afternoon. I would try to do something else to keep from disturbing him. Sometime he would get up and stretch like that cat and I would think he was going to wake up, but he would just lay back down.

[agate]

Cats do make a point of napping wherever and whenever they can. When I was translating a stack of papers piled up in a box next to my typewriter (anyone remember those?) as I turned out each page, and my cat liked to settle into that box and lie on it even though she was too big for it and overflowed it.

I didn't mind except that occasionally she chewed or scratched around the edges of the top sheets, and then I had to redo them.

I never wanted to disturb her and so I'd wait until she left before adding more sheets to the pile. Probably one reason I never did make tons of money as a translator. I was letting that cat run the show.

She was an amazing calico cat named Jenny.

Amazing because she was such a good traveler. She flew with me from Boston to Chicago, then from Chicago to Seattle, and then all by herself from Seattle back to Chicago. A transcontinental kitty. She never created a problem in spite of many long hours cooped up in that cat carrier.

[Virginia]

Jenny was just crisscrossing the country. She sounds like a very special cat.

Cats are strange. I never owned one of my own, but my Grandmother, who I lived with for awhile loved cats and always had several, so I was around them. Max was rescued and he paid attention to some of the others who worked there, but usually when I came in he got in my inbox. The other people picked at him and I just left him undisturbed. I always told them that was the reason he liked me.

[agate]

I'm sure that was the reason. Cats do insist on running their own show. You might enjoy letting a cat manage your household now, in fact. Never a dull moment.

No, that's not true. Cats sleep up to 18 hours a day.