P7: Prat fall

Today's left grip ties the record at 52 pounds (52, 50, 49), right grip is 96 pounds (96, 92, 94), and inhale remains at 4500 mL. Right foot balance is 30+ seconds as usual, and left foot is 8.63. This metric is highly variable, so it will be a long time before I have enough data worth showing in a chart.

I feel that the one gram of oral penicillin twice daily is helping, but I have asked the doctor to increase it to two grams twice daily. We'll see what he says. When I started the ceftriaxone, the benefit was massive and sudden. Given, a lot of my nerve cells are dead, and in the practical near term, I don't expect the beta-Lactams to bring me back to normal strength. My nerve cells are probably still pretty much cleaned of bad glutamate from the ceftriaxone, and I would have seen the biggest increase then, in my first use of a beta-Lactam. So it would be unrealistic to keep expecting strength increases one after another until I can win an Olympic event. But despite all that valid reasoning, I do expect modest strength increases (which I have seen on the right side), and one other objective I have is for the fasciculation to reduce, or stop. After all, if we remove the stress (excess glutamate) from my motor neurons, ought not the twitching stop? This assumes a glutamate-only model of ALS, I know.

I was standing and talking with a neighbor yesterday when I started to take a step, and the toe of my right shoe caught on a recessed sprinkler head. I fell forward, full length onto the grass, but was not hurt, except for the tip of my toe which stung a bit. When I got home I saw the the forward edge of the toenail was cracked, laterally across the foot, not lengthwise towards the cuticle. There was a little blood but no flow. I put some antibiotic and a Band-Aid on it and took two ibuprofen and an Excedrin.

I cannot say for sure whether this fall was caused by ALS, or was just because I am a clumsy dufus.

I must have twisted my neck in the fall because after napping yesterday afternoon I woke up with a crimp in the left side. I limped around (more than usual) that afternoon and evening. This morning I am still limping from it, but it appears to be healing.

I also have a notable increase in muscle twitching. I think it is the soma responding to the fall. Before the fall I was under the impression that the twitching had reduced somewhat, though it wasn't certain enough to blog about.