Toe Up

After six weeks, I still hadn't had any movement below my waist.  I used to stare at my toes and tried to will them to move. I prayed.  According to the literature, I was supposed to start getting movement back within six weeks.   Before this particular week, I hoped my legs would start to move, but wasn't too concerned because I thought I would be moving by the end of the time frame I had read about in a book about spinal cord injury I was reading. 

But at the end of week six, I got nervous. Each night, after my parents had gone home, and I had eaten dinner, and had some alone time before the nurses made their rounds, I straed at my feet and prayed.  I didn't make any promises to God, but I prayed.  Then, on a Friday, after a couple of friends from work had gone home, and I was alone, praying, and I remember saying, "Please, God, give me some sort of a sign."  At that moment, my right big toe flipped up, and then down.  Physically, it was probably a muscle spasm, but I took it as a sign.  I stared at my toe for the rest of the night.  The toe didn't move again, but I knew it did. It was not my imagination.

The next day, Saturday, whenever I was idle, I stared at my feet. I straed and prayed all day, but no movement.

On Sunday, the same friends who visited me on Friday, visited me.  I told them about the toe.  I tried to get it tomove, but to no avail.  After they had left, my leg, from the knee on down, spasmed. It straightened out.  I couldn't bend it back up, so I pulled my leg up and then willed it to slide down.  I did not want to go to sleep, for fear that when I woke up, I would not be able to move it again.  But I knew I had to go to sleep.  But before then, I took my phone and videotaped the movement in my leg.