Parkrun Blog Features our Story – Again

Parkrun Australia Pacific recently featured our story for a second time on their blog.

Since the two strokes Antigone had in March, she now needs two people to assist her getting in and out of our running wheelchair. I’ve created a new transfer device to assist, using the plastic seat from a shower stool from our friend Marie who died in 2021. Antigone stands, then we move the plastic seat onto the wheelchair armrests for her to sit on and swing her legs outside the wheelchair frame.

I mentioned in A Fun Saturday Adventure that we have a new way of configuring it to help her walking posture – shown with Janey below. I came up with another idea last week – to use a sling or strap around Antigone to help her keep with the walker (i.e. not exceeding a maximum safe distance). We have been doing this for her daily walks near home since mid-June. We will now try it with the running wheelchair as walker too.

Antigone’s walking is going well. A couple of weeks ago she walked almost to Moreland Station. We measure distance by counting the piers supporting the elevated railway. They are 27m apart. 29 piers without stopping is 513m – the longest continuous walk since the March strokes. Yay Antigone!

And her most recent parkruns have also been record breaking. Each with three walks, she walked a total of 600m three weeks ago and 740m last weekend. Yay Antigone!

I was looking at Antigone’s parkrun statistics today. She has participated in 112 events. Her ‘best finishing position’ is 19th, at Goulburn River Trail parkrun, Seymour. That was a very cold morning last Winter when her choir Shaking the Tree had a weekend away at Common Ground near Seymour. That parkrun had a lovely feature that day – they had a fire for keeping warm before and after the event. Next weekend we’ll be at Seymour again. I wonder what that will bring us.