Blog Post

I almost did not make it to my session on Tuesday.

Two hours in traffic. An uncomfortable ride the whole way. Twenty minutes late. I went from the car to the walker in under two minutes, and the entire time I was thinking: I will rest as soon as I get to the other side.

I did not rest.

And I walked at 20% robotic assistance – something I have not done in a while, maybe ever.

What that number means

I walk using the Wandercraft Atalante X, a self-balancing, hands-free robotic exoskeleton that allows people with severe gait impairments to stand and walk upright without crutches or other support. For people like me, it is one of the only ways I get to feel my feet on the ground, feel my muscles working, feel like a body that is still capable of things.

The exoskeleton has an assistance setting. The higher the assistance, the more the machine is doing. The lower it goes, the more I am doing.

Walking at 20% means my muscles are carrying 80% of the work. Every percentage point I reduce is my body taking something back, reclaiming something that has been building through months of sessions, even when I could not feel it happening. 20% is not a small thing. It is proof that the work is accumulating, even on the hard days.

I felt it in my legs. I felt it in my breathing. I broke into a sweat, which still surprises me every time it happens.

Why I did not rest

I know how precious each session is. I have known it since the first time I walked in the Atalante X and felt muscles working that had been dormant for nearly two decades, including my ankles and the pressure of my feet on the ground. That session changed something in me. Every session since has carried the weight of that memory.

The traffic on Tuesday was already time I could not recover. Resting inside the room would have been more of the same. I had made it there. The only thing left to do was use every single minute.

I am so glad I did not waste a single moment of that session.

The hardest sessions sometimes become the best ones

The conditions are rarely perfect in rehab. They are rarely perfect anywhere. You arrive exhausted, or late, or in pain, or all three at once. The easy thing is to hold back, to tell yourself you will do better next time.

Sometimes the hardest sessions turn into the best ones. This happens because of what you bring to it anyway.

That was Tuesday.

Thank you to the Wandercraft team for making sessions like this possible.