Can anyone who had learned to walk again walk 2 miles?

 

Yesterday, I had a vocational counselor do an assessment on me. I was excited and hopeful until the end. She said that I should talk to a doctor about starting a walking program because a person like me should be able to do 2 miles. I was devastated and started crying right in front of her. I was so embarrassed. My first thought was that she just doesn't understand. She explained that if I could walk, then I could get to the bus stop and ride that back and forth to a job. It was as if my last 4 years of working hard at recovery and maintaining some range of motion and strength was just a lazy vacation that I need to stop.

 

We almost lost the house because I could not work. I have missed so many of my nieces and nephew's events because I cannot move and may be having a bad pain day. I cannot go with  my husband to his important functions at times because of my mobility issues. Yet, I guess that I am supposed to be able to walk 2 miles and get in and out to a job. I was so hoping that she would have ideas of what I could do at home to earn money.

 

(My emotions are all over the place even as I right this. I am having anger and depression and feel like my emotions are all over the place so please let me apologize now if this post sounds horrible and awful.)

 

Last night, I started wondering what was wrong with me that I cannot walk 2 miles. I have trouble with walking to the garage and my husband will pull the car up on to the lawn to get as close to the fence as he can so I don't have to walk as far.

 

I am an L3-L4 incomplete that spent 5 weeks in the hospital learning to walk and worked my way up to a walker. I went home with a wheelchair as I could not maintain walking for long periods of time. I also had AFOs (Ankle Foot Orthotics-braces) on both legs but only need them on one foot now. I had 6 months of outpatient PT and worked up to a cane. I think that I was able to walk for 10 minutes at one time at PT on their treadmill, but that was very slow so I don't know how far it was.

 

I am so down right now and feel like people must think I am the biggest faker of all time. I was proud that I worked up to sitting up and doing email. I can sit for about 45 minutes at a time and then I need to move or lay down for about 15 or 20. I try to maintain the times so I can tell if I am having a bad day or easy day. Even on my bad days, I try not to get stuck in bed. I try not to jump first to my pain pills because I am scared to death of building up a tolerance and having nothing to relieve the pain. I am so bummed out that I no longer want to even consider working because if a vocational counselor doesn't understand my health problems, there is no way that an employer is going to understand when I can't function and I just don't want to deal with that.