Thank you to Jennifer for taking me out and getting me drunk, and to Mike and Steve for inviting me to their party – a great night, with lots of lovely people.

The temperature here sort of hovers around zero, and dips to minus 7.
Everyone wears big coats, hats, gloves and scarves.

I wear a sleeveless T shirt.

People look at me as though I’m crazy.
They ask where my coat is.
I have a standard answer….Its ok, I’m from Wales.

To be fair, they all smile or laugh.

Even though most of them probably think that’s a really big fish.

Me, trussed up like a turkey, being electrocuted.

The ‘good’ news is that I’ve drawn the ‘lucky’ ticket and am in the ‘best’ group of the 3 types of ‘treatment’ in this experiment.

That means that I’ll be in the group of 6 people that get to be hung up in the hoist with their feet on the ground, so that weight is bearing down on their feet. At the same time, electrical pulses will be applied so that my leg muscles tense up ‘to hold my weight’.
I must emphasise that I won’t feel a thing, but my legs will, independently of connecting with my brain… what’s left of it.

I’ll get 60 sessions of this over 12 weeks, plus get other physio to try to engage dormant muscles that I currently have no power over.

The expectation is that my legs will gain bulk, and that I’ll be ‘healthier’ at the end than I am at the start.

Which is good!

Otherwise here things are slowly getting better, in that I have a bit of a routine, with going to the gym, working fairly hard in there, not fearing the push to the hospital ( and getting faster and stronger at that bit, for sure ).

I’m going out tonight ( drinks ) and tomorrow too, to a pretty exclusive cocktail party ( get me – when they know what I’m like, I don’t suppose I’ll get an invite next month ) but I’m honoured to be invited this time.

Dani and the girls arrive on Friday night- 48 hours and counting – for 10 days of lovely company for me.

There is definitely a regular blip that occurs whenever things seem to improve for me, but as this post is upbeat I won’t dwell on that.

Thanks to everybody that contacts me.
FaceTime is now the preferred method of choice – it is better to see who you’re ‘talking’ to!

Okay, now I’ve gotta stay awake til i go out in 3 hours time, but falling asleep whilst in my Stand Up Chair is quite unlikely.

.. To my new American friends for having me along with them on Friday.

That’s Mac, Mike, Ken, Ben and Joey.

Isn’t that the cast of ‘Friends’ ?

For the company and the help and to Mike for the rides ( lifts in English ).

Well I was looking forward to waking up – until I did, having pissed the bed.

For the first time in quite a while, and despite not having a full bladder.
So it makes no sense at all.

One step forward, 2 back.

Today the sun came out in Louisville.
It was 15 degrees above and it was warm – properly warm.

I watched the two 6 Nations games on my iPad, talked to my wife and daughters on FaceTime, wished my mum a happy birthday, and then went out.

It’s the first proper time that I’ve done that – as in gone out, alone, without a destination, just for a look around.

I wheeled along the ‘sidewalk’, through roadworks along the road edge ( ok, a bit risky – but they had dug up the pavement ) for quite a while.

I eventually found a coffee shop which had tables outside, got a passer by to help me through the door, ordered a coffee and a cake ( and a fruit salad ) went back out, sat in the sun for 2 hours and read a paper.
It’s the first time I’ve read a paper in 19 months and been able to concentrate on what I’m reading. Before today, I’ve read the words and when ive reached the end of the article had little or no idea what it was I’d read, my head filled with other, less pleasant thoughts.
Today was different. I had to read and re read the lines, but then found they were sinking in. I felt optimistic and positive for the first time possibly since my accident that I’d be ok, that all was not lost, that I wouldn’t have to pretend for ever.

Tomorrow is another day, the forecast is for the cold to come back, but I find myself looking forward to waking up.

So I had my VO2 max endurance test just now.
They get you on an arm powered ‘bike’ with full gas mask and tubes on, yet more electrodes stuck to my chest.

You ‘arm pedal’ and every 2 mins they increase the resistance until you can’t take any more.
Knowing my lungs post injury are rubbish, I prepared myself for failure.

The test has a maximum time of 16 minutes ie with 7 increases in resistance.
No one had finished it. I did ask, that being my first question.
One guy had got to 14 minutes.

I had a scale of effort to nod to, being unable to speak thro the mask.
It went from 6 to 20, six being easy and 20 near death.

It got progressively harder , obviously.

At ten, guaging the increases, I thought that 16 minutes would be possible so I dug in , thinking of the very many times pre injury that I was tired beyond belief but kept going.

I am now the new record holder, having finished the test.

Did it make me feel good about myself?

No, that’s a much bigger challenge.