Slowly but surely, things are getting back to normal. It's taken longer than I would have thought. But I'm also an impatient person who enjoyed living in a world where I thought that it would be no big deal to start walking again after breaking both legs and spending two months in a wheelchair. Ahhhh, denial. Sometimes it's a beautiful thing!
Next month marks the one year post accident time point and I'm trying (at least some of the time) to be kind to myself on my progress. I'm trying to keep in mind that everything will come as it will and it's certainly not like the dogs are judging me. Well, Miley is a little, but whatever.
Throughout this process of relearning how to walk, I have refused to do really any sort of heeling with the dogs. Even on a good day, my gait was uneven and walking a straight line for very long was beyond me. I LOVE heeling. Having this hiccup make a mockery of that was incredibly unappealing. Not to mention, it just felt counterproductive for the dogs to have me periodically bumping into them through no fault of their own. So heeling was on hold. Fine, we'll start smaller-ish.
The physical therapy team that I have had throughout this process has been phenomenal! They've kept my at home and at the gym routines constantly evolving. And they were always trying new things during my sessions. They basically didn't allow me to get board. Which, in the lengthy process that I had ahead of me, that was pretty key to keeping me plugging away.
Earlier this year, my primary PT asked me what kind of physical goals I had for the year. I touched on a few different areas of interest where I felt I could set tangible goals that would give me something to look forward to. One of those areas was getting back into the conformation ring with Dominic. My PT didn't show dogs, so she wasn't entirely sure what would be entailed in this. I gave her a general run down and she started thinking out loud. It might be beneficial to have me bring Dom in to the clinic so that she could see me work with him and get an idea of 1) how I move when I've got him on the other end of the lead and 2) what I need to be able to work up to. She ended up getting approval from the director of the clinic and they verified that the patients who would be over lapping with me weren't allergic to dogs, and we were off!
It was one of the BEST sessions I had had! Hitting specific measurement milestones were huge, but knowing that I was REALLY working towards getting back ALL aspects of my life was beyond words! Part of me was a little worried that she was going to recommend against me taking Dom into the ring, but after our session with him, I got the green light!!
Fast forward to now. :) After many weeks of plugging away, being persistent and consistent regardless of how awkward I felt, tomorrow Dom and I will be getting back into the conformation ring! We're only entered tomorrow for the double specialty, but I'm really excited to get back into the ring with him. It's going to be awkward and I know that I'm going to be self conscious about it, but it's working those bits of normalcy back into my life that I need. And it's also about damn time.
So here's to getting back into the conformation ring and here's to making an effort to blog semi-regularly again!
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