This weekend I went up to Louisville to participate in the Walk to Victory over Paralysis Walk-a-thon at Frazier Rehab Institute. This is an event for all patients, past patients, therapists, and people connected to the cause to raise money for The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation to help various people with Spinal Cord therapy and advancements. In previous years it has been a 24-hour event. However, this year it was only 12 hours.

They ran their treadmills for the full 12 hours with other satellite hospitals in the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation NeuroRecovery Network doing the same, capturing it all on a livestream. Dr. Andrea Behrman and Dr. Susan Harkema (the top research doctors at UofL and in the Spinal Cord Injury world) were both in attendance and took their turns walking on the treadmills. I, myself, did some time on the treadmill as well. I was harnessed in a parachute harness and suspended over the big treadmill to walk as three different people each worked a leg and my hips to simulate walking to get get my brain to find new paths to essentially “talk” to my legs.

When people weren’t walking it was a big party in celebration of the event. They had multiple bidding items and many board games as well as a plus sized Jenga. They did many different challenges as well, including: the cookie challenge, the saltine challenge, and seeing how high you could take out and stack the Jenga blocks. This was a fun time for all those who attended and helped out. It is definitely something I will be looking forward to next year.