And now, at last, we get to the "down" part of this "Down, Thou Climbing Sorrow" series. And hopefully, you will see that with a little practice and a little care, there is no need to expect any sorrow whatsoever.
Before we take our first step downhill, let's review my three rules for avoiding sorrow during downhill walking or any other even slightly risky physical activity:
- Be smart.
- Be careful.
- Take your time.
We are not in a hurry! We are out to see the sights and enjoy the day, both this day and the larger metaphor of "today" that is our whole brief span of time on this planet. It doesn't matter how many steps per hour we take, or even what kind of feet we use to take them, or even whether we actually end up using feet. It only matters that we take steps at all. Right? Good.
So, when last we met I left you here (click to enlarge):
I left you here without any clue how to get back down from here to the street. Well, now you'll get some clues. At least, I hope so.
This is where we meet back up with the path downward.
That's the long view. Let's take a closer look at where our feet will actually go. (Click to enlarge.)
Now, the thing about being smart, which you'll remember I mentioned as something very desirable in those three bulleted rules listed out at the top of this post, is that sometimes it means we have to perform a little risk assessment. Oh, sure, I can probably walk well enough on this slightly steepish loosely gravel-and-debris strewn path for the ten feet before the steppingstones resume. Is it really something I need to prove, though, to you or anybody else? Also, am I really less klutzy than I was on my two original legs, when I used to slip on gravel like this -- and diverse other surfaces -- and land on my butt sort of routinely? The answer to both these questions is of course a resounding "NO."
Here's another question: Is there an obviously better alternative -- you know, other than turning around and trespassing through those back yards? And of course the answer to this question is a hearty "Yes! Yes, there is!"
I can just not walk on the path.
"But what, oh Sara," you may ask, "am I to do when hiking in the mountains where one side of the quite possibly even steeper and more gravel-and-debris strewn trail is a sheer cliff and the other side of the path is hillside and I have absolutely nowhere to put my feet other than on said even steeper and more gravel-and-debris strewn path, or maybe even in a patch of poison ivy?"
Well, in that case, you do what other hikers do, regardless of their own personal complement of legs: You carry a walking stick or two and take your time. You sidestep (which I will demonstrate below) and/or you cross back and forth (which I will also demonstrate below) and/or you climb down backward (which, of course, I will also demonstrate below), and you take your time, and you use your walking stick.
"But I don't want to carry extra crap along with me."
I can sympathize! However, if you are going hiking in mountains or planning to embark on any slightly to significantly wilder excursion than a walk through this small suburban park I'm showing you today, or if you just want to be able to at the drop of a hat, you should plan to bring extra crap. In that kind of scenario, as in the case of your water supply and first aid kit, it won't be crap, it'll be essential equipment. Also, as mentioned in a previous post long ago, one can purchase telescoping walking poles with both spiky feet and "paw" feet, all of which are very sturdy, many of which will support even the chubbiest prosthetic-wearing amputee, and several of which really fold up quite small. Find them at your local sporting goods store, or at the Walking Company, L. L. Bean, REI, or Eastern Mountain Sports. Pack them, and when the going gets iffy, as depicted here only without the lovely grassy easements, use them. Use them with pride, just like people with both their original legs do all the time. 'Cause high-tech safety solutions are really way, way more impressive than macho-ing yourself into a body cast, or even a humiliating whole-butt case of gravel rash.
"But what, oh Sara," you may also ask, "am I to do when I find myself in a garden, public or private, where the only place to step off the path is covered with rare and delicate plants?"
First of all, I want to see this garden. Secondly, it is highly unlikely that you will encounter steeply sloping, unstepped, gravel-and-debris strewn paths in a cultivated garden. Thirdly, see the answer to the first question. If you do find yourself in this kind of situation, I've got to think it's highly unlikely that you got there entirely by surprise. Just like before, when you had all your original limbs, you can have one of two things: You can have adventures with an extreme potential to get the better of you, or you can plan to be able to enjoy any type of adventure you are likely to have by being honest with yourself and packing with you the minimum number of accoutrements that will keep you reasonably safe but still let you get out of the car and go. Keep a lightweight telescoping walking stick or two in your trunk or daypack, and just be sure to take it/them with you when you alight somewhere unfamiliar.
Personally, I don't go on such risky adventures these days. I expect to, but we don't have mountains around here or steeply sloped, unstepped, gravel-and-debris strewn cultivated garden paths, and my true love is disinterested in exploring the White Mountains with me at this time. When I do next go on that kind of adventure, I will bring a pair of telescoping walking sticks. I'm klutzy, and I hate carrying around extra crap, but I'm also not more stupid than average, and I also want to hike around on more than one challenging mountain trail before I die.
Knowing our limits and working around them is how we prove our intelligence. Another way is not taking risks that have smaller potential for causing pleasure than harm. Consequently, today I am not taking the gravel path. And I am not ashamed of this choice.
I did, however, choose to start photographing it in a sunnier place. Here I am, striking my prosthetic foot out first.
Notice how much smaller my downhill stride is than my uphill stride. This is because going uphill, the weight of my body committed to my prosthetic leg works to keep the prosthetic knee unbent, whereas going down, the weight of my body swinging forward over the prosthetic knee works to bend it more easily and swiftly than on flat land. I have practiced a lot, and I know how fast I can position my organic leg to receive the weight of my body as I complete the step. I don't put my prosthetic foot so far ahead that the bending of the prosthetic knee will be forced by gravity to happen before my living leg is ready to assume responsibility for catching me.
Now, I took the opportunity to demonstrate something else here, because let's face it: Falling on grass is a lot less painful than falling on stone or asphalt. The something else being demonstrated is going downhill sideways.
You might choose this option if the grade you are descending is very steep. You should not do it this way, with your organic leg first: Do you know why?
Although the organic leg is longer than the prosthetic leg, it is not vastly longer. When you go down sideways, nothing inspires your prosthetic knee to bend. The knee is gravity-neutral, neither forced straight, nor forced to bend. If you put your living leg down first but don't bend your prosthetic leg at the same time -- a very, very tricky operation in and of itself at this angle -- the lip of the socket holdng your prosthetic leg onto your stump will stab you in the crotch or groin. This is not only unpleasant, but unsafe.
It is unsafe for two reasons: First, the unpleasant, possibly even painful, sensation of being stabbed this way by the lip of your socket might make you panic, and when we panic, we tend to make bad choices really, really fast. Second, you might not actually be able to get your living foot on the ground solidly before you have to tilt off your prosthetic leg, and this might cause you to fall in such a way as to break your neck.
This is a much better way to go downhill sideways:
Put your prosthetic foot down first, just like you would going down stairs. Balance your weight so that it is working on your prosthetic heel to hold your prosthetic knee unbent. Then bring your organic foot down to meet the prosthetic one.
It is not actually slower to descend a hill this way, and it can be safer when a hill is very steep because you are not allowing gravity nearly as much power over your prosthetic knee as you do when you descend facing forward.
Let's look at some other surfaces. After the gravel, which I opted to avoid in favor of lovely, soft, traction-y grass, there is a long string of steppingstones. You can still just walk beside them, if that's what feels safest to you. If you want to consider going down them, though, this is what that can look like:
Of course, when you can manage it, it's always safest to go downhill like you're going down stairs: Put your prosthetic foot out first, and then bring your organic foot next to it. Put your prosthetic foot out again, and then bring your organic foot next to it again. And so on.
Steppingstones, though, don't really work that way, and are kind of an exercise in opportunism. Sometimes the best way down is not a straight line forward, so when walking downhill on steppingstones or other unevenly textured and irregularly shaped surfaces, you have to look for opportunities. You look for solid surfaces without much slant forward.
Isn't that interesting? Again, the thing I am attempting here is to wrest control over my prosthetic knee away from gravity. The stone I have selected for placing my prosthetic foot is not very far forward, but it is lower down the hill than the stone on which my living foot is placed, as you can tell by how my living knee is bent. What I will look for next is a place to move my living foot which will allow a solid platform for repositioning my body before transferring weight to my prosthetic foot again, on an even lower surface. Sadly, it turns out there's no photo of the next step. If I don't just bail out and head for the grass at this point, my guess is that I put my living foot on that sort of U-shaped broken stone up left of my prosthetic toes. Then I probably pivot and reconnoitre. Don't have a clue where exactly this walk goes from there, though; sorry.
Eventually, though, I reach yet another type of surface, the last kind offered in this park before it returns us to a platform of slate on the threshold of smooth, flat concrete. That last kind of surface is (click to enlarge) --
-- asphalt. Steeply pitched asphalt. Lumpy, bumpy asphalt with stuff growing in it. (Click to see stuff in large detail.)
Yikes, right?
Naw. You can do this, one step at a time. I will show you three different ways this very day.
First, the obvious:
Ha! Kidding! Well, okay, yes, you can chicken out and just walk on the grass. You won't be able to do it all the way down, though. Look at that first picture of the asphalt path downhill, above. You see those bushes on both sides? These are fragile old lilac bushes. They have all kinds of papery, powdery, and yet also painfully shard-y branches you can break if you try to grab onto them because you've lost your balance. The Town of Concord will not be especially pleased with you if you kill them, either because you grab at them in a panic and uproot them as you fall, or because you land on them and break them under your weight. Also, the lilac roots are all tangled into the grass, so it's not the same smooth, soft passage you have before and after them. You might as well try the asphalt, really.
So, this is the real first way:
<Look familiar? It should. It's sideways descent, and I demonstrated it above, on a comparatively safe grassy surface. Again, this is usually one of the safest ways to go downhill, besides just sitting down and sliding or buttwalking all the way to the bottom -- also always an option, never forget.
Sideways is not always the safest way, though. The path you are on may twist, meaning it doesn't go straight downhill, and this can change the angle of the path's surface. Also, you may encounter unsafe globs of crabgrass to get around, or dips and cracks and potholes. So sometimes, you might want to try something else:
You might want to try crisscrossing. Travel across the path, only downhill very much more slightly than if you were facing forward. When you reach the edge, as shown above,
just turn yourself gently around, still traveling slightly downward, and start back across in the other direction.
Sometimes there's just no good place to put your feet facing forward, or facing at an angle. Don't give up before you've tried this technique:
Yep, backing down works great, too! You do it just like you walk down sideways, first placing your prosthetic, then bringing your living foot to meet it.
(Note: I might have gotten the order in which these shots were taken mixed up, but for purposes of this demonstration, please just ignore the placement of the cracks in the pavement and focus on the feet. Thanks. Sorry.)
As you might be able to tell by the relative location of the grassy edge in these shots, when you back down you don't necessarily back straight down the path, especially if the path is as lumpy-bumpy as this one. However, while exercising the same kind of prosthetic-first safety you use going downstairs, when you back down a hill you are also taking advantage of gravity, using it to hold your mechanical knee straight, just like it does when you walk uphill.
Now, as you've probably already deduced, it's not safe to lead with your living foot while backing down a steep slope, because if you put your living foot out in back first, you would then either have to fall backward kind of sharply to make your prosthetic knee bend or experience the displeasure of having your socket stab into your crotch as described above. So if you choose to travel down backward, put out your prosthetic foot first, always, watch where you position it and feel it for stability before transferring weight onto it. Let it be the foot to lead you downhill backward, just like when you descend stairs..
Of course, not all downhill slopes are horrendous or terrifying, in which case you should feel free to make use of more standard practices.
Sometimes you can just walk downhill normally, facing forward, taking smaller steps than you would going uphill, but still getting the job done. Sometimes normalcy really is an option. You just have to keep your eyes open to the pavement directly in front of you and adapt your strategy to fit.
We have almost completed our Old Hill Burying Ground slope walking adventure. Past the lilacs, back into the sun, past the history elves still at work, and all the way down the rest of the asphalt, we find ourselves back at the narrow, narrow entrance.
There's only one way out, and it isn't pretty.
Hold your breath, turn sideways, and follow me (click to enlarge):
Okay, exhale! Whew! Good job!
I hope this has been helpful. I hope you've learned that hills do not have to be problematic, whether you're going up or down, even if you don't have a C-leg. You just have to pay attention a little bit, make adjustments as you travel to what's really right before you, to the true shape and texture of the path you're on right now (which might be different from the path five steps back), and, well, not be foolish or dishonest about what you really can do at any given stage of your rehab or the walk itself.
It's sort of like yoga. In yoga, we push ourselves to strive for perfection of a form, but we also try to accept our limitations, to excel within the boundaries of our own bodies and minds even while pushing those boundaries to expand. It's not a balance that most people find easy to strike, but it's worthwhile to seek whether you're practicing yoga, walking up and down hills or mountains, or just going about your everyday achievements.
Along those lines, there's just one more thing I want to say about all this.
What if you never get to the point where you can take a walk like this one all by yourself without a cane or a crutch, a walker or a chair?
Well, so what?
My purpose in creating this series of posts -- any of the posts on this site, now that you mention it -- has not been to create a lockstepped marching band of uber-able transfemoral amputees -- though if you pull something like that off yourself, well, mazeltov, and I totally want to see it perform.
No, my whole point here is to try and put forth information to help you maximize your own potential to enjoy your own life on your own terms. This might include encouragement to get off your butt and try stuff, if that's an option for you, or just go look at stuff before your life is over. Or it might just be that one stupid, trivial little trick -- or even just a different way of seeing something basic -- that you needed to know existed but that no one else had mentioned yet. (Click to enlarge.)
It's not like you'll be flunking amputation or something if you don't do everything Just Like Me.
I hope this is clear.
Okay, then. Moving right along,...
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