Though you often hear about the fitness goal of walking 10,000 steps every day, it’s not a realistic goal for everyone. Nonetheless, I’ve tried to walk every day. Though mostly for pleasure, I’ve walked to and from work most days over the last few years. My lower right limb amputation last year put a stop to that. But not for long.
My colleagues at ABC Radio Sydney, working on the Breakfast Show with Craig Reucassel, are running something called their “group assignment” right now. And this week’s Group Assignment involves counting up the steps to see how far listeners can walk collectively.
They invited me on radio to talk briefly about my experiences of learning to walk again, and about the 10,000 step daily goal we often hear about. This is a rough transcript.
Craig: I want you to meet one of my ABC colleagues, James O’Brien, and he has a special experience with walking. Thanks for joining us, James.
James: Hello, Craig.
Craig: So, tell us what happened to you late last year?
James: It was exactly on the first of July last year, when I had the lower part of my right leg removed, I had an emergency situation. I had that leg removed and so I wasn’t able to walk for at least a couple of months. I’ve had a lower limb prosthesis since the 17th of September last year.
Craig: And so as part of that process after getting the leg amputated, have you had to learn to walk again with the prosthetic limb?
James: Well, I had to learn, first of all, to sort of hop along in the hospital. I was in Sacred Heart Rehab at St. Vincent’s, which was awesome by the way, and while I was there I had to learn to slow hop along initially. I was quite amazed that I went from hopping to walking very quickly. In those early days, walking 10 steps was pretty remarkable. As opposed to the 10,000 a day, we often hear about.
Craig: Yeah, that’s amazing. It’s interesting with the prosthetic limb, I imagine the lack of feeling, like not being able to kind of feel, do you not feel a foot go down? What makes the walking process difficult?
James: What’s really interesting is that we have this thing that’s often called “phantom pain”, but I just call it “phantom sensation. And the first time I put on my leg, the prosthetic, I put my foot to the ground, I felt like my toes were touching the ground. So it’s not so much the lack of sensation there, it’s the energy that’s involved in actually walking day to day that is quite remarkable. And so when I was able to walk up a hospital like 50 meters, I was just so excited about that. And then it just got more and more every day. So the main sort of thing is feeling a little bit tired from day to day. So every day I walk a little bit more, but I feel tired, and so I might have to come home and have a little lie down for a while.
Craig: So if you started with ten steps, how many steps do you do now that’s kind of more normal?
James: More normal for me now is probably five or thousand per day. But the highest I’ve ever had was just over ten and a half thousand. That was pretty remarkable. One of the things I’m doing right now is I’m in training right now for a major event in a couple of weeks time, which is participating in the ABC float in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
Craig: So you’re practicing for that. How long is that? How long is the Mardi Gras worth? I mean, whenever you watch it, if there’s a lot of time not walking as well, a lot of time standing still, isn’t it? Yeah.
James: Look, look, I’ve been at the parade maybe half a dozen times now. And I know exactly how it’s 1.7 kilometers. I did a test run a couple of weeks ago with my physiotherapist, Pieta. I said to her, “I’d really like to walk in the Mardi Gras this year”. And she said, “Yeah, I think you can do it.” We’ve done one practice run, and we’ll do some more. We also have been talking about just sort of building up some strengths around my legs and just to make sure I’ve got enough energy and that sort of thing. But it’s 1.7 kilometers. And we did a test run a couple of weeks ago. And I did it in about 30 to 35 minutes.
Craig: Which is probably going to be a lot faster than you do it on the night. Good on you, James. Good luck at the Mardi Gras.
James: Thank you.