I have decided that i would share with you today what I have been doing in my After Care. After Care is the most amazing concept ever! After all the doctor mandated Physical therapy and learning how to use all the equipment, you get to come in when ever you want and keep exercising, like a gym. So this is what I did today without pictures...Mike's cell isn't working right now in that area. So no pictures.

The first thing I do is ride the Bicycle. It has all these little buttons and whistles that tell me how long I ride How far I go and how fast I am getting to no place in particular. I ride at level 7 and that means I actually now have some bit of resistance. I rode for ten minutes at roughly 16 mph and went 3.3 miles. As I do this I look out on our town park. Today my prayers were for the Olympians safety. I am old enough to remember the Munich Olympics so my prayers are for all of them not just the US Team. I pray for the perscuted Christians in China, the victims in Darfur, the one child forced abortion policy in China, the war in Russia and Georgia and our military around the world. Those are the fastest 10 minutes of my workout.

I usually go from here to the elliptical which I love, but we switched it up because of my vertigo. I went to the parallel bars and did 60 lunges off this rubber spaceship thing. Really it looks like the moonbounce ball Heatherlee used to jump on when she was little sliced in half. I push off of it and that causes me to use more muscles. Did any of you ave a moon bounce ball?

After that it gets fun, I sit on a doctor's type stool with wheels,  no I did not spin myself dizzy. Actually my inner ear is doing that for me right now as I am having a horrid bout of vertigo. But back to the stool... The first time Tim asked me if I had sat on the stoll and walked across the floor I laughed, Are you serious? he was and it was not easy. That day I barely went across the floor and back. He laughed and said "Oh yeah we are keeping that one. Now I go across and back three times or six laps. After that I have to put a rubberband around my ankles and walk sideways across the floor, again 3 times up and back again six laps.

Back at the parallel bar I do what they refer to as wall push-ups. I can't lay on the ground and do push ups, I would not get back up, but if I angle myself to one of the bars I can do push-ups off of it. 40 of them. There is a set of rings next to the bars and I hold on to them angle myself backwards and do pullups! The first time Tim suggested I do that I said no way. I was scared I could not hold my weight and pull myself up. As I leaned backwards I tought "This is it all this work, all this surgery I am gonna go straight down!" And I was a bit shakey, but I did it. Now I do 40 pull ups and head over the the rowing machine.

When we put together my plan Tim asked if I wanted to just work on my legs or on upper body strength as well. After  walking with that walker, I realized I really need upper body strength since I will be doing this all over again. Getting on to the rower is the hardest part for me. Putting my feet in the straps to hold them in place and getting so low to the seat, both of those things make me nervous. But once I start it is a race in the Olympics. I can her the voice in the megaphone shouting Pull pull Pull. And I do. I was told when I started last month to work to 500 meters. Today I rowed 741 meters in 4 minutes, about .8 of a mile.

I do not know what the next machine is called, but I sit in a chair and lift up a padded bar withmy legs 30 times lifting 35 lbs and pushing down 35lbs 30 times. Since I did all of these things without getting dizzy, I put in 3 minutes on the elliptical, not wanting to push it and then I finish with 30 Sit to stands which is exactly that. I sit and stand up 30 times.

So I may not be ready now but who knows, maybe by 2010 in Vancouver I wil be! And Tores thinks she's old!!!

Tomorrow I have water aerobics and I have that for three more weeks than the pool closes for the rest of the year until June!

Now you know what I have been doing lately...working my hiney off! Someone asked me at church yesterday why I was still "basically" doing Physical Therapy. I told her "God has blessed me so much withthis new knee and with how amazing my recovery has been; if I didn't I would feel like I was robbing God of His glory!"