January 8, 2010: This has been a snowy and very cold winter for us so far, with two feet of snow before Christmas and temperatures average 20 degrees below normal for this part of Virginia, so we were forced indoors for much of our picture-taking recently. Luckily, we hit a sunny and slightly warmer period the week after Christmas and Paige was finally able to get out for a longer and better photoshoot. It's hard to call any miniskirt "Warm" in this sort of weather, but Paige went with a tan corduroy mini and brown tights to keep her legs as warm as possible under her taupe leather and polished band KAFOs for this series, and added a brown jacket on top.
The plan was to head out for a little shopping, but first Paige had to get herself buckled in and ready to go. Once her braces were on she stood up, and took a moment to practice balancing in her braces without the crutches by leaning back into the upper cuffs of the braces and moving her arms for balance. As good as she is getting at that she was only able to hold it for a few moments before grabbing her crutches for support!
Paige and Jacqui both agree that steps are perhaps the most difficult obstacle while in braces, and after a number of minor falls and near-misses each has developed a style that works for them. For Paige, her preferred method for shorter stairs is to leave one leg locked to support her weight, and release the other knee so it can bend. Then, she lowers her crutches to the next step and places her weight on them, and uses her hip to push out her locked leg while lowering her weight with her arms. As she does so, her unlocked knee is free to bend but still gives a sense of balance because her foot is still in contact with the step. Finally, she swings that leg forward so it can fall and straighten, ready for the next step. Finally, once at the bottom she reaches down to lock her leg and head up the path to the car.
January 11, 2010: We were taking the van for this trip, but first Paige had to walk up to the other car to get a few things she needed. Once she had everything it was back to the van, get in and head off to town...
January 12, 2010: Finally we were on the road... our assistant camera-gal took a few to show the view she had of Paige from the front seat as we were traveling, and then manned the camcorder for our walk around the shopping center...
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