Moving Around

Ok as mentioned last time, I have the new wheel chair. Now that I am Ativan free I can make the wheel chair almost do what I want. Problem is that it doesn’t fit me, and it’s too big. So I am always leaning to the right and anytime I take my elbow off the armrest I flop a little to the right.  When you’re driving a wheel chair with a toggle switch which has quite close tolerances any movement at all shifts the chair either up, down, right, left, back, forward…problem is I can’t get my hand positioned correctly over the controls. So I have to take it very very slowly when driving around. It’s great being able to move myself from A to B without Darcy having to push the chair. They areworking on getting me a chair that fits. I guess I’m too narrow for my height but the chair would probably fit the sarge perfectly hehehe as he is a little wider for his height (Note I’m only zinging the sarge because he was here this morning zinging me, telling PT they should work me like a rented mule). Was good to see George, John and Gavin – I think Gavin really enjoyed riding the recumbent while I was on my moto-ped. I am up to thrity minutes on the bike and pedaled 26 minutes, 4.5 km unassisted Yeehaw!.

After Physio today I had OT at noon, as they wanted to see how much lunch I could eat by myself as they did with Etienne. They gave me utensils with fat handles, it makes it a lot better but they still do move around a bit. With a little assistance I was able to drink my soup out of a cup, I ate most of the salad with a fork – was a little difficult stabbing the little pieces on the plate but was able to eat most of it by myself.  It is interesting when your hand is wobbling around and your trying to stick a fork in your mouth. I have two advantages over most people I would think, I have a long tongue and a big mouth.  I can handle the egg salad sandwich although I sometimes squeeze too hard and loose all the salad. The problem being is my thumb is quite strong but I don’t have a lot of strength in my index finger. So I have to hold the sandwich in strange positions in my hand. But for the most part I can handle finger foods, and I can pick up those little plastic things of juice and manage to put the straw in my mouth. I will be able to drink from my water jug once my hand gets a little bit stronger.

The big issue now is my left KNEE. On Monday as I mentioned before while they were moving me around in my bed they really hurt my knee. As they didn’t really listen or understand my instruction on how to move my knee. The MRI on Tuesday has shown that I have a torn ACL my understanding is that it is the ligament that keeps your knee from sliding forward. The doctor mentioned thata  lot of people live without an ACL but the team is discussing the best treatment for my knee. Which in the near future may include cortisone shots just to relieve the pain. Down the road they may be talking some surgery to replace the knee. I asked them about the fact that I was on blood thinners, but they said they would take me off prior to surgery. And this is a little scary they would put filters in the veins to prevent blood clots from getting passed my knee…yikes! But that’s off in further discussion.

In OT I was doing curls, reps of twenty with a pound and a half weight…WOW! And I was also able to do triceps and chicken wing lifts with my shoulder with the weight on. Note that is only on my right arm, my left arm doesn’t move all that well, but the fingers and thumb are starting to move slightly. I’m also getting some movement/sensatation in my left wrist according to the Therapist. The real crappy part is the OT thinks that I really could walk on my right leg and possibly on my left if I didn’t have that knee issue. Anywhoo the care here is fantastic.  I think they draw straws who gets me at night, and the one who gets the short one gets stuck with me although I am getting a little better. The foods good, and I seem to be eating well and lots. I’m getting into the ‘bowel care’ routine. That’s a fancy way of saying I get to poop every night at about 8o’clock. They are trying to get me to go every other night, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Learning curve, as you know I have a neck brace which everyone here says I Have to wear all the time, given that it is very uncomfortable and scratches my face, I have been taking it off at every opportunity. When I’m in bed or moving around, I even take it off down in the lounge when I eat my meals. For the past three or four nights I have had a real problem with my scalp and ears going numb and a pain down my traps and down into my scapula sometimes it was very, very irritating. Yesterday the back of my neck was very sore (not where the surgery was, just muscle pain) and I put the neck brace back on and guess what? The pain went away, and my scalp no longer gets numb – go figure. Although there is an interesting thing thatI found out, that when I start feeling pain in any part of my body I get numb between my eyes just above my nose…very, very strange, and it goes away half hour to 45 minutes after I take a pain pill.

Yeehaw! Kelly is back from Australia/Bali and she is actually typing this, really cool to see her after two years, somehow she looks taller and she thinks my hair is greyer.

Signing out talk at ya later.

new wheels

A new wheel chair, is really great. It’s amazing how independent it makes you feel just having that little toggle switch and allows you to move forward, right, left, backwards and spin around in circles, just that little bit of independence feels great.  The chair is a fairly big monster, as it not only does the above mentioned turns but it also lays back and sits up. To get a chair that was long enough for me, they had to get one that was a little bit wider, so even though it is much more comfortable than my previous chair, it still doesn’t really fit me….not complaining, not complaining. If and when I get a custom chair,  It will be designed to accommodate my height and my skinny ass.  So hopefully the custom chair if and when I get it will fit perfectly.  This chair belongs to Parkwood and the guy who had it before me had it all jazzed up, it had 4 forward drives, and one reverse and you can control the speed from turtle to rabbit, right now I can’t drive too smoothly, and I think it will come with more practice. 

I had to go to St. Joe’s today for an MRI on my knee. Yikes that damn tunnel of hell again.  The good thing is I only had to go in up to my chest.  Just to be on the safe side the doctor gave me some Ativan an hour before I left parkwood and then I got a small pill under my tongue about a half hour before I went into the machine, so I spent most of the 45 minutes with earphones on because they are very noisy doing Kata in my head.  The Ativan, really helped with the MRI and the trip to and from St. Joe’s, but it did cause a problem when I got back into the wheel chair, it wouldn’t go straight, and I did wipe out some tables and racks in my room.  So I took a short trip down to OT in my chair and back up to my lounge where I had my supper and headed back to bed. I sure would not recommend taking Ativan and driving a car I was a lot worse driver today while n Ativan then I was yesterday.  (Meghan adlib: He sounded like he had, had a few glasses of wine) So it’s early to be tonight.  Last night I stayed up quite late and didn’t take my sleeping pills until around midnight, as I wanted to watch the rugby game between Canada, and Japan, I did see Canada’s first try, and watched Japan immediately tie it up, I must have dosed off after that and didn’t wake up again until about 5:30.  I missed physio today because of the MRI but I had a good session in OT.  Due to the fact we had been messing around with the chair for the last couple of days I needed to catch up on some hand range of motion exercises, and I was able to do some triceps work with a pound and a half weight on my arm.

 I have to go now, time for bowel care, and my shower…. Talk to you tomorrow.

Sunday

September 25, 2011

It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m watching New England beat the Bills though I wouldn’t mind if the Bills did win.  (Right Patti?)  Weekends are very slow compared to the rest of the week.  And it was great to have all the visitors yesterday.  And the chocolate cake and the homemade cookies are yummy.  Visitors are great, but I find that the best place for me to visit with people is in the lounge.  Given my claustrophobia, I find it difficult to have a lot of people in my “small” room.  I like visitors but I prefer to be in my chair and in my lounge.  NOTE:  The lounge IS mine now because most of the time, there is no one there and that is where I eat my meals. 

Last night I got a really good night’s sleep from about 10 o’clock pm to 10 minutes after 4am, then it was on and off napping until Darcy arrived shortly after 10am.  Weekends as I’ve mentioned before, there’s no routine.  Breakfast seems to come late and lunch seems to come early.  And I have to wait for a nurse to come feed me, and wash my face and hands etc.   Although now, to wash my face they just hand me a wet washcloth and let me do it myself.  Maybe I mentioned this before, but I can now brush my teeth with an electric toothbrush and can get about 90% of my teeth clean. 

Today, for some reason, I don’t feel too lively but I think that could be from spending about 12h in bed.  The good thing is, I seem to have a good appetite and the nurses who feed me comment on how much I do eat.  Darcy or Meghan are usually here to feed me lunch and dinner.   Today I had lunch outside with Darcy and Kenny Jobba. 

Kevin Marsden came up yesterday and did a whole bunch of work on my computer so I can have easy access to programs.  I can work the mouse but I have difficulty double clicking, and when I try to double click one or two of my other fingers seem to hit the “right” click.  But I think it is good training for my fine motor skills, frustrating though it is.  Kenny , who also likes working on computers, was able to increase the font for my emails as initially they were coming through too small for me to read.  So hopefully now I’ll be able to open and read my emails and when I learn how to use “Dragon” effectively, I’ll be able to respond.Next week I should get a large roller mouse and hopefully that will let me move the cursor more smoothly/effectively. 

Occupational therapy gave me some goals which are in the next week to 10 days, I should be able to feed my easily with hand foods and hopefully I’ll be able to use some utensils.  I think I could use a spoon now, but it would have to be bent in the correct position.  I think it will be quite funny to watch me eat soup with a spoon, but - damn it - I’ll get there.  (Hey Patti, Bills just scored and they’re now tied with New England!!!) 

I’m starting to learn that I must do things in moderation as I got a cramp in my left thigh when I was showing off to George, The Sarge, on how fast I could spin the pedals on the moto-ped.  The physio did tell me, “Not to do that!”  I also found that the easiest way to explain it, when I over work, my nerves or my brain seem to get “jangled”.  And then I need to take a rest for a while to get back to normal.  This also happens when I have too many visitors in my room

Okay, signing off.  Talk to you later.

(Typed by Kenny Jobba)

a rainy day at parkwood

Well another blog...noon on friday, another miserable day (weather wise) had another bowel care session last night it went ok, but the only problem the commode was made for someone 5 foot 4 , maybe next time i'll get a video. this is the bad stuff...i get to bed around midnight, couldn't find a comfortable spot for my knee so i watched tv until about 6 in the morning, and then managed to get some sleep. My male student nurse came in today again today, gave me a bath and got me dressed, got me breakfast, its nice because he has the time to talk while he is doing all of this stuff. i was thinking of hiring him to come in everyday. his supervisor came in to talk to me as well and i think i gave him a very good reference, believe it or not a guy can be a care giver. i certainly couldn't. george came up this morning and took me down to physio, just to see what was going on. he stayed with me through out physio, and as we all know george he started talking the gentleman that i met yesterday, who had been in the air force who had been in the air force since 1959 and he a george had a great conversation. I had to remind the sarge that he had come to visit me and not the rest of the patients in the place hehehe. i got on the motoped and did another 26 minutes, learned a valuable lesson this morning, i tried to show off to george how many RPM i could do on the pedals...got it up to 63, which is 10 higher then i had ever done before, but then my left quad cramped up, so much for showing off. the physio slapped me on the back of the head. then after 26 minutes on the bike they got me sitting up on the edge of a table which is tough to do, since i don't have a lot of strength around my stomach. I probably sat up for about 10 minutes i am guessing. I have OT this afternoon at 2 o'clock and i am going to ask for a tilted over the bed table with a mouse pad and hopefully i will be able to sit up and run my computer, I have been working with dragon (voice activated soft ware, and i can make it work while dictating, but we are having problems finding the correct commands to make it work through programs like my emailer and the web. it is going to take awhile to learn the commands to tell it what to do but it also has to learn to recognize my voice, so hopefully down the road we will get it together and i will be able to tell my computer what to do. we shall see. Meghan is going back to collingwood this afternoon, and won't be back until sunday, with kelly. kelly is flying in form bali, meghan is going to pick her up form the airport in toronto on sunday...and i want her to go home and take a shower and change of clothes to get rid of all the bali bugs. so next blog will probably be sunday night or monday. have a good weekend everyone. 

today

Grrrr....haven't got the power chair yet. they don't have one here my size and they are waiting for the supplier to get one, a touch disappointing. they really do keep me busy here. once they get me up in the morning. the hard part is waiting for the nurses to come in to feed and dress me. Today and tomorrow, i have a student nurse, male, who is assigned to me and he comes in feeds me, washes me brushes my teeth, gets me dressed and does any other request i may have a great kid. It think he will make a very good nurse. Three Doctors came in today. I think they are called a Physioist and they work on the spinal cord injury floor, and they assessed me. The doctor the resident and the student, they did the A.S.I.A (american, spinal, injury assessment) by pricking me with a pin and touching me with the other end they are able to determine which sensory nerves are working or not. It seams to change every time it is done, although i think it is a bit of a subjective test because both the examiner and the respondent give subjective answers i.e. she must interpret what i mean when she compares a pin prick to my face to a pin prick on my knee, when i say they are almost the same, I guess it is a good tool for measuring sensory response over time. The Doctor also looked at my left knee very thoroughly and he doesn't think that I have a torn ACL. The MRI on Tuesday will shed more light on that. the knee is getting better day by day and is almost back to normal size.
Yesterday afternoon there was a lunch and learn about legal rights but i found that i couldn't stay in a small room with a bunch of people, never could. the Representative from the Paraplegic Association came to see me today. The Association (CPA) provides information and assistance to all spinal cord injury patients both in and out of the hospital. The representative is in a wheel chair and has been in one for 47 years. She is married has three kids, drives a car and appears to live a very normal life.
Physio today had me sitting on the edge of the table not balancing as i did in toronto, but trying to get me to engage my flexor muscles in my back. i can't believe how tiring it is sitting up for just 10 minutes. As i write this i am sitting in my chair but i will have to get back into bed soon, as i have a red sore on my back that is aggravated when i am in my chair. the bike was great again today, not quite as good as yesterday, but still feels good to turn the pedals. I just wish it was set up like a real bike, so the spindle of the pedal would be under the ball of my foot and not under the middle of my foot, but i guess that will come. I met an interesting guy today who is retired from the air force and flew air force cargo planes out of trenton and was with the Canadian NATO forces during the cold war and patrolled in fighter jets. I can't remember what jet he flew but he did mention that it was an american design built in Canada and he claimed they were the best planes there.
tonight is bowel care, which means I get to get up and sit in a Commode...yeehaw!
We are going to practice dragon naturally speaking, the voice activated software for my laptop.
talk at you later.

Best made plans

Quick blog today. Best made plans, well the schedule for today was OT at 9:00 to teach me how to brush my own teeth to teach me how to brush my own teeth, hair cut at 9:30 and physio at 10:30. the nurses got very busy this morning and were un able to get me washed and dressed and into my wheel chair until 20 after 10 so i missed the hair cut and my tooth brush training. but i guess that is how it goes. physio was different today. as they strapped me to a big table and tilted me slowly up right, to about 25 degrees and then up to 40 degrees for a few more minutes. they physio said the maximum is about 60 or 65 degrees and then my head would start flopping forward. but it was really good to feel my right foot on the ground and i could actually push against the floor, it felt real good! left leg is a little different as the knee is bent more than usual but i could touch the floor with and push slightly with my toe. the real good news about my left knee is most of the swelling has gone down, it will never look normal but, it doesn't ache continuously or seem to get out of alignment today. it actually didn't keep me awake last night as i found a position where there was no pain. Which does two things which means i get a fairly good night sleep and i don't have to take so many pain pills. no pain pills from 10 pm last night until 11 this morning. I also got to pedal today in physio and was able to pedal to pedal for about 15 minutes on my own with no power assist. Had my maximum cadence today a wapping 52 rpm. I made more than 3 km today so....1194km to go. the physio doesn't tell me if i am going to get on the bike and when i ask they answer is if there is time, but she knows i like it so much she has got me on it the last 3 days in a row. she will be justly rewarded. This afternoon i should be getting my power wheel chair and we will see how it goes. My new remote for the TV worked well last night, what is a guy with out a remote. One little down turn, is i have a red spot developing on my coccyx (tail bone) which means i can't sleep on my back for as long as i would like to and i can't stay in my wheel chair as long as i would like to. when i am in my bed i need to remain on my right side as long as possible (this is to prevent a bed sore form forming there). we will see how that goes. looking forward to OT today at 3 o'clock and i will keep you posted how that is going. catch you later. note: i am sitting in the lounge and my OT just walked by with a power chair.....hopefully its mine. :o)

more routine less rambling

Hi gang, meghan is still typing, on the new laptop but, we don't have Dragon set up yet. been away for a few days, as meghan has had a cold and has stayed away from the hospital. It has been interesting settling here at Parkwood (PW). saturday or sunday there is no physio or OT, so i rely on my friends and relatives to keep my parts moving. I have found that my brother in law Bud, has magic hands and gave both feet and my left knee and it felt soo gooood, "Bud come back!!!" so now for the real routine that I am settling into. I'll start at 8 o'clock in the morning, when breakfast arrives, and then I wait for a nurse to come in and feed me. and then I have my morning bath with a washcloth, sometimes with one nurse sometimes with two nurses and sometimes a nurse and an aid, how many of you can say get all moving and non moving parts washed by two nurses every morning. Then I get dressed usually into shorts and a t-shirt. and then i wait in bed until about 10:20 and then i get loaded in the wheelchair and head to physio. I get out of physio just before noon , just in time for lunch which i eat in my lounge over looking the gorgeous grounds here. then i go back to be or stay in my chair and wait for OT, which the time hasn't been set yet, but it is usually 2 or 3 oclock, and then its back to my room or i sometimes stay in my wheel chair and tour around here Darcy taking me where she wants. Supper comes at around 5 and i try to be in my chair and eat supper in the lounge again. then its back to bed, or every other night, i have bowel care and a shower. Then at 10 or 10:30 I get my sleeping pills and its off to sleep. and th whole routine starts again. Now for what is working and what is not working.
In Physio yesterday and today i got on a motoped, which is basically pedals they roll my wheelchair up to and strap my feet in and the cranks are very short, about 4 inches long. so I am able to do a complete pedal stroke, even with my bum knee. the machine says that i am doing 20 km an hour and i have been on it monday and tuesday for 20 minutes each and it has a screen that measures muscle tone and yesterday my maximum muscle tone was 22 and today it was 26 unfortunately, its a new machine and nobody yet knows what the muscle tone reading means. The machine power assists a bit and if i do need a rest while on the machine the machine will continue pedaling keeping my legs moving. pedaling backwards also feels good, so to stop the machine and reverse it, i just pull with my right foot and stop the pedals from moving, and the machine detects a spasm and changes direction. about 3 km so i only 1197 km to do in this 1200km.
In OT they are working on my left hand painful though it is the fingers are starting to move. They have given me splints for both of my right and left hands which i wear "or supposed to wear" 2 hours a day. they just keep my hands, my fingers at the proper angle, about 10 degree. I also have a big boot for my left foot that i wear 2 hours a day "supposed to" to keep my toes from dropping. good news is They set me up with a TV remote and i can run my TV...all by my self....yeehaaw! On monday they measured me for a new wheelchair, that is a power wheelchair, that is run by a toggle switch, so i am really looking forward to that as Darcy will no longer have to push me around, and i can pretty much have free rein of the building. although i won't be going to far by myself. I am really looking forward to a bit of freedom. Good news, for tomorrow physio said i may be strapped to a board and stood up vertically, to see if i can put any weight on my feet. So, i stand tomorrow for the first time in a month. :o)

Another day at Parkwood

I am starting to get used to the changes in a rehab hospital.  In acute care every day was the same. In rehab weekends are really different from weekdays. During the week in rehab there is physio and OT and they get up every morning and make you get dressed note I wear shorts and a t shirt and when I am in my wheel chair I much wear shoes.  Darcy and Meghan went to sport check, and I now have a pair of shiny black basketball shoes they selected because there was a tall basketball player at the time and said they said they were light and comfortable; he bought them so they did too.  On the weekends it is much different it is much different because there is no reason for them to get you, so I lay in bed for several hours this morning just waiting for stuff to happen. I did have some problems this morning as I couldn’t get me left knee into a comfortable position. And since it was the weekend there doesn’t seem to be as many people here to help. They have changed my pain medication to a long lasting, 12 hour pill that I can bump occasionally if I need it. As mentioned before the biggest hindrance is my re injured left knee. As far as movement is going the little physio and OT that I have had seemed to get me moving in the right direction. The OT did mention although I don’t want to get too hopeful I could possible have a 100% recovery in y right arm. At this point in time the left arm is a little behind but I can move my fingers slightly and I contract my biceps slightly. The triceps however is quite week. The start of this blog was going to be about parkwood but I always seem to return to all these blogs is to what is hurting, working, not hurting not working. So I will in the future try to stick to the topic. Today I will continue to ramble.  Last night wasn’t a good night due to my knee mostly and I think I upset the nurses by ringing the bell frequently. The good thing last night was they put me on the commode again and tonight I get on the commode again and have another shower.  Hopefully this will keep me from stinking so much as I did when I was in Toronto, where I only got daily wash downs. I mentioned in a previous blog that I have a great roommate, I asked if I could use his name and he agreed, Peter has been so helpful as sometimes I lose my call bell when I can’t see it on the bed and he calls the nurses for me and I think sometimes I even wake him up to do it. This morning was very interesting given my knee problem and I wasn’t getting the response that I was expecting so I had peter call Darcy on his phone to see if they could get here earlier.  And Meghan did arrive about an hour and a half earlier.  Since peter is mobile in a wheel chair and has use of his arms he actually came over to my bed and adjusted my leg. Not only is peter helpful but when his son arrived I had my leg brace on and it had been tightened very tight so he was very kind and loosened all the straps for me and I ended up talking to him for 10-15 minutes taking time away from his visit with his dad. I am finding that I have got to start keeping quiet as I am talking too much, way too much and becoming a pain in the butt, no I am getting  tired of listening to my self…in the future I will try to be briefer in my explanations and questions. I think I am really going to like it here once I get used to the routine staff are fantastic and any residents I have met so far have been great. Looking forward to getting down to some hard work at physio and OT on Monday. Interesting to note: that my OT rides with a local cycling club and has a titanium bike with campy components. So I can talk cycling to somebody. Good to see Ross and tony today. In the future I won’t ramble as much I promise but…..

Parkwood

I’m at Parkwood; I’ve been at Parkwood since Wednesday. Wow what a difference.  My biggest fear was being alone at night with out Darcy or Meghan there. The nurses reassured me that they would look after all of my little quirks.  They gave me a call bell that I could call to the nurse’s station, the only problem is it had to be attached to my bed where I could see it and touch it with my right hand. It works.  When I couldn’t find it or it got moved my roommate was kind enough to call for me. It is a completely different attitude here…because this is a rehab hospital and Toronto western is acute care facility.  The basic difference it acute care is interested in looking after your injury and they don’t necessarily worry about nor have time for diet, bowel care, showering washing etc. in 25 days in acute care including IUC I had 2 showers. Every morning I did get a bed bath which helped but according to my wife…I did stink.  When I arrived here they explained they would slowly work me into there routines. Which is a shower every other night, and I had mine last night…it was wonderful. And then every morning I get a bed wash down. Now this is where it gets into body function thing.

In Toronto, I never got onto a commode and they give you lots of laxative to keep things moving through. Not the most pleasant sensation as you feel like a 6 month old child sitting in a poopy diaper. They did try to change me regularly but they are awfully busy so sometimes I had to wait. Given the laxatives and all the movement for the transportation here I was very very uncomfortable and felt like I was going to explode all day Thursday. Wednesday was a nasty day my nerves were a bit jangled. Thursday I had the most wonderful experience I have had in about 25 years…that was they actually got me up sat me on a commode and I was able to poop vertically for the first time in 27 days …WHAT A RELIEF …they are slowly moving me over to there bowel management routine which after my first experience works great.  I have met all of the Doctors here who will be looking after me, there are two neurology specialists, and a general practitioner, and they aren’t really concerned about my surgery, but in getting me moving, independent and moving to the best of my abilities. The most pain I have had since I have been in the hospital is my left knee (it was reinjured in the fall, when they tried to take my foot out of my pedal, the injury to my knee has prevented a lot of good physio work, because I really can’t move it at all).  In Toronto they simply learned how to move m with out bending or twisting my knee, when I arrived here, they looked at my knee, had a discussion about the best way to deal with it. I had an x-ray this morning wow that hurt a bit. And the plan is if I need it I will have an MRI on it and then we will go from there and the doctor has suggested some cortisone shots as I have to get this knee functional again. 

Physio, the first time I was taken down to physio I was in a wheel chair of course the wheel chair mechanic, and immediately said we have to fix that chair up for you…even though it fit a lot better then the one in  Toronto, which I think was made for a 400 pound guy. In fact it was so big Darcy couldn’t see over the top of it when she was pushing me.  So navigating down the halls was an adventure.  The wheel chair mechanic took about a half an hour fitting me to the chair. And they were very concerned about how I felt in it and the adjusted anything I wanted adjusted. The first day of physio was a lot of testing, of what I could and couldn’t not do and what I could and could not feel. I also have and occupational therapist as well, the difference is they physio therapist looks after my muscles and body parts, and the occupational therapist is concerned with how I can use what I have (function with day to day tasks).  Physio today was some more testing and strength testing and sitting me up at the edge of a table. Slightly differently then they did in Toronto.  It’s my imagination but I do feel a little safer here I had two lovely little physio girls in Toronto, while here one of the people holding me up is a former rugby player (prop). So having a big strong guys hanging on me just gives me a little more confidence which is probable just my imagination, as the physio therapist in Toronto were quite capable of keeping me from falling. I get physio and occupational therapy daily. It appears to be an hour physio in the morning and occupational therapy in the afternoon.  In physio this morning, rather than simply holding my leg to get me out of the chair, which felt like getting knee capped every time they moved me (nauseatingly painful, that even after the pain pills) they found me and adjustable knee brace that locks my knee in the most pain free position and keeps it there even during moves.  They don’t want me to keep it on all the time as that will mean my leg will tend to stay in that position, so it is only used during transitional times. Today is a much much better day then yesterday. Due to my bowel treatment last night I have not had poopy drawers yet today and my knee is stabilized. Care was great in Toronto, and the care is great here…they are just different.

Travels

Hey guys, well I made it to London.  It was sort of a difficult ride in an ambulance, on a stretcher.  They did give me my pain pills and some gravel, which did make me sleepy. But, I didn’t take any water with me and they didn’t have any in the ambulance.  I have an annoying habit that when I doze off my mouth drops open and my mouth becomes very dry, so even though I was doped up for the whole trip I don’t get any sleep.  I think all road supervisors would take a ride in an ambulance and they would soon learn which roads to repair.  We left Toronto at around 8:30 and arrived at the wrong hospital at 11:20 after a trip from one side of St. Joseph’s to the other, and up and down the elevator we finally found out we were at the wrong hospital, and we got directions to Parkwood.  WE arrived here at noonish. .  It is sure different here than in Toronto.  Brand new building and the halls and rooms are made to accommodate wheelchairs.  I didn’t realize how much the trip would take out of me, but I’m really pooped right now, in more ways than one.

It seams they have some great programs here, not only for physio therapy and occupational therapy bur for other issues that plague people with spinal cord injuries. Such as bowel maintenance and I actually get a shower, every other night, I have met my physio therapist, but tomorrow is when the fun begins.  The real difference here is Darcy and Meghan aren’t allowed to sleep on the floor at night so this is the first night I will be all alone :o( ….from 8:30 pm to 11 am.  We will see how it goes.

Now I would just like to say a bit about Toronto Western Hospital.  The care there was absolutely amazing  from the ICU where there was 1 nurse to 2 patients and you are hooked up to million dollar machines, but I think the designers of the alarms on those machines work for Volkswagen because  they are as about as annoying as the seat belt alarm in a bug.  The nurses, aids, and doctors are just amazing and will do anything to make you comfortable. On the 5^th floor where I stayed in room 116 most of the time the nurses and the aids were excellent. Two were particularly  note worthy, for the sake of privacy we will call them A & Z.  They both worked incredibly hard and they were continually running through the halls. But when it was your turn they made it very personal and made it feel like they were working just for you, no matter how busy they were.  They had a good sense of humor and we had a lot  of fun joking around. Z was also a massage therapist and when ever you were rolled up on my side she would be massaging, my ears, my head, and also my feet and my knees. .  A & Z are truly care givers, as well my roommate and I called it the flying when they moved us to our chairs from our beds or from our chair to our beds.  My roommate was a pilot so we had criteria for flying and we rated every flight and kept a log. They way they got bonus points was how smoothly they sat us down in our chairs. If we touched the head rest or the arm rest they would lose their bonus points.  So  A&Z were first place finishers in the flying competition 2^nd place goes to my 2 physio girls who were also very good at getting me off the physio table and back into my chair.  Every week that I was there one of the physio girls would do and A.S.I.A test (to check sensitivity everywhere on my body.  She would use a paper towel and brush it lightly on my cheek and then she would touch my arms, legs, chest, feet, and hands and if I felt I would say touch and same (as my cheek) or different (as it felt on my cheek) the 2^nd test was done with a safety pin and she would pick me with the pointed end and then touch me with the dull side. Then she would go over my body again and I would have to tell her if I felt sharp or dull. The good news is she did my sensations had improved with every test….YEHAAAW!!

Now I am starting a new life in London and my new roommate seems to be very pleasant and comes from a town close to tillsonburg so we will probably have a lot to talk about. Again thanks again for all of the cards, gifts and visits.  It means a lot!!

There are visiting hours at Parkwood Monday to Friday 4:30-8:30

                                                            Saturday and Sunday 11-8:30

I am in Room 489 Level 4A in the East Pod.

Travels

Hey guys, well I made it to London.  It was sort of a difficult ride in an ambulance, on a stretcher.  They did give me my pain pills and some gravel, which did make me sleepy. But, I didn’t take any water with me and they didn’t have any in the ambulance.  I have an annoying habit that when I doze off my mouth drops open and my mouth becomes very dry, so even though I was doped up for the whole trip I don’t get any sleep.  I think all road supervisors would take a ride in an ambulance and they would soon learn which roads to repair.  We left Toronto at around 8:30 and arrived at the wrong hospital at 11:20 after a trip from one side of St. Joseph’s to the other, and up and down the elevator we finally found out we were at the wrong hospital, and we got directions to Parkwood.  We arrived here at noonish.   It is sure different here than in Toronto.  Brand new building and the halls and rooms are made to accommodate wheelchairs.  I didn’t realize how much the trip would take out of me, but I’m really pooped right now, in more ways than one.

It seams they have some great programs here, not only for physio therapy and occupational therapy bur for other issues that plague people with spinal cord injuries. Such as bowel maintenance and I actually get a shower, every other night, I have met my physio therapist, but tomorrow is when the fun begins.  The real difference here is Darcy and Meghan aren’t allowed to sleep on the floor at night so this is the first night I will be all alone :o( ….from 8:30 pm to 11 am.  We will see how it goes.

Now I would just like to say a bit about Toronto Western Hospital.  The care there was absolutely amazing  from the ICU where there was 1 nurse to 2 patients and you are hooked up to million dollar machines, but I think the designers of the alarms on those machines work for Volkswagen because  they are as about as annoying as the seat belt alarm in a bug.  The nurses, aids, and doctors are just amazing and will do anything to make you comfortable. On the 5^th floor where I stayed in room 116 most of the time the nurses and the aids were excellent. Two were particularly  note worthy, for the sake of privacy we will call them A & Z.  They both worked incredibly hard and they were continually running through the halls. But when it was your turn they made it very personal and made it feel like they were working just for you, no matter how busy they were.  They had a good sense of humor and we had a lot  of fun joking around. Z was also a massage therapist and when ever you were rolled up on my side she would be massaging, my ears, my head, and also my feet and my knees.  A & Z are truly care givers, as well my roommate and I called it the flying when they moved us to our chairs from our beds or from our chair to our beds.  My roommate was a pilot so we had criteria for flying and we rated every flight and kept a log. They way they got bonus points was how smoothly they sat us down in our chairs. If we touched the head rest or the arm rest they would lose their bonus points.  So  A&Z were first place finishers in the flying competition 2^nd place goes to my 2 physio girls who were also very good at getting me off the physio table and back into my chair.  Every week that I was there one of the physio girls would do and A.S.I.A test to check sensitivity everywhere on my body.  She would use a paper towel and brush it lightly on my cheek and then she would touch my arms, legs, chest, feet, and hands and if I felt I would say touch and same (as my cheek) or different (as it felt on my cheek) the 2^nd test was done with a safety pin and she would pick me with the pointed end and then touch me with the dull side. Then she would go over my body again and I would have to tell her if I felt sharp or dull. The good news is she did my sensations had improved with every test….YEHAAAW!!

Now I am starting a new life in London and my new roommate seems to be very pleasant and comes from a town close to tillsonburg so we will probably have a lot to talk about. Again thanks again for all of the cards, gifts and visits.  It means a lot!!

There are visiting hours at Parkwood Monday to Friday 4:30-8:30

                                                            Saturday and Sunday 11-8:30

I am in Room 489 Level 4A in the East Pod.

Hey, Finally Some Good News

Hey finally some good news, it appears that my heparin will be coming out tonight and they will get my blood adjusted Tuesday and I should be, could be hope to be off to London on Wednesday.  It seams that there were a lot of people pulling for me to get into Parkwood, Some people that I don’t even know. Thanks to everybody, particularly the ones I do know, and you know who you are.  It’s great to be going because it is the next step forward, however I am a little bit concerned about  going in a medical transit vehicle from Toronto to London, oh well, maybe they will give me some drugs and that should help out a bit.

My roommate, gord sloan is probably also leaving on Tuesday or Wednesday to go to Lyndhurst he is a little more mobile than I am, as he has the use of his arms. And can even push is own wheel chair.

A move forward, I can twitch the muscles of my left leg, with out it going into spasm although it still goes into spasm when they move me around, Or during any other movement at any time.

 As mentioned gord has been a good roommate although we are going to keep in contact as I have his phone number and his email address.

 So check in before you come and visit especially if you are planning on coming on wed. or after because we may be in parkwood. Meghan will keep you posted, so check here or check the facebook page. 

Glen

Geez, one of those days

It’s just been one of those days; it was great having all of those visitors, Ronnie, Linda, Dave, Fred, Kevin, Greg, Andy, and ken, Vickie and Sam.  However it was just one of those uncomfortable days.  Had some new staff, who were not familiar with putting me in my sling, and getting me correctly positioned in my wheel chair. I got put in my wheel chair at about 10 and I was really uncomfortable about half an hour later. My bum didn’t seem to be in the right position in the chair and the head rest didn’t seem to fit either. Just one of those days. Oh, ya, and now I’ll get graphic, seems every time they put a new diaper on me I would have a B.M., of a pee. At one point, they put me back to bed changed my drawers, put me back in the chair and (Ronald and Julie, always get me positioned correctly) and no sooner was I back in the chair it felt like I had another B.M., go figure! When I finally got back into bed, they told me there was no BM so something must be happening down there that I don’t know about. A yes the good things, as well as the visitors, was I found the TV room, and watched a little bit of Buffalo beat up on Kansas city. And watched the final of the US women’s tennis championship. Rah, Rah, Samantha who beat Serena in straight sets a fantastic  match.  That’s the first TV I have watched since arriving here. 

Oh ya, there are also things that go bump in the night, a couple of nights ago, my chest got very tight all the way around. I talked to the nurse about it and she thought it was my rib intercostals muscles were going into a bit of a spasm. Well last night, at about 9:30 I got some localized chest pain on the left side of my chest,  I started feeling a little strange, so at about 10:15 I called the nurse she immediately got a hold of the Doctor on call took my blood pressure, took my pulse, which was actually 61, and did extensive questing about my chest pain. About 20 minutes later, I had an ECG and by about midnight the chest pain was easing off. So I took my sleeping pills and pain pills and went to la la land for a couple of hours.  In the morning, with 20/20 hind sight I may have created the problem my self at around 8 o’clock I did about 80 crunches, just barely lifting my shoulders of the pillow, which could have cause the pain in my chest. Haven’t heard anything form the medical people about it so I am assuming that was the cause.

I know this blog is a little all over the map, but that is the kind of day it’s been.   I don’t know if my roommate appreciated all the commotion with the nurses and the ECG equipment beeping beside his bed.

Due to my blood clots I need to adjust my blood thinning medication, so I get blood taken every 6 hours. And my arm is starting to feel like a pin cushion hopefully I will get the blood thinners all fixed up and I will be able to get to London next week.  AS mentioned in my roomie blog Gord Sloan my present roommate has just been wonderful through all the commotion that I have been cause note: he just said, I’m not causing any commotion and I should wipe that out. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

Oh yes, Valerie the physio girl gave me some exercises to do 3 times a day 18 range of motion extensions and 4 strength exercises . So I have to do 3 sets of 30 with each arm and leg holding the position for 5 seconds.  So, it is a fairly long work out. I can do most of them on my right side but have some difficulty on my left, so those are my goals for next week from the physio lady.

Talk to you tomorrow

Glen

Roommates

Well when you are sitting in a hospital bed, as you can imagine time seems to go by very slowly. What really helps is a good roommate. Note: names have been changed to protect the innocent.

 The first roommate I had when I moved to the 5^th floor from ICU was Mr. Lewis.  Mr. Lewis was a 69 year old from Trinidad who had live in Toronto for 34 years.  Problem is you can’t see who your roommate is because you are bed bound and there is a curtain and I can’t turn my head. So a roommate is just a voice on the other side of the curtain. Mr. Lewis when we first moved into the room would talk very loudly and go on for several minutes talking to himself Darcy wondered if he had a mental issue. As it turned it out Mr. Lewis was using his ranting as a distraction from his pain. Once I got to know him we had lots of nice conversations about many things including hospital stuff like peeing and pooping as well as keeping positive and staying on the road to recovery.  Mr. Lewis was shipped to scarborourgh General and when I was in my chair I managed to see him and shake hands with him on his stretcher before he got on the elevator to leave.  Note: names have been changed to protect the innocent.  What I will remember Mr. Lewis for is when I first got into the room I was having trouble with my pooper and he over heard my conversation with Darcy and all I heard from the other side of the curtain was (in a thick Caribbean accent) “Free your mind mon, and your ass will follow”  hmmm pretty good philosophy for life.

My second roommate in room 108 was an older gentleman who had surgery on his lower spin because he could no longer walk. And when I an arrived in his room he was bed ridden immediately after his surgery. The day after his surgery they got him up and told him he could walk to the washroom which happened to be right past my bed.  Using a walker HE took mini steps the first day  (this is a guy prior to his surgery could not walk at all) by the 5^th day I changed his name to the road runner as he was no longer using a walker but simply using a cane and he was not only walking to the washroom he was walking all over the hospital, it was fantastic to see his progress not only the progress, the determination with which this gentleman took on the task of relearning how to walk. Not only do you meet he roommate but you also meet family and friends of roommates. Road runner’s wife, was just a hoot she was a nationally ranked diver in the Czech Republic in her youth. So we had all sorts of conversations about athletics, she would get frustrated with the nursing staff and the dr. who didn’t provide her with the information that she thought she needed. Before she would leave at night she would always come and see me with an infectious laugh she would say I’m going to the bar to have a beer.  A funny story was  her husbands hospital gown was open in the back was always showing off his butt so she brought an old pair of pj’s from home for him to wear. However the elastic was shot in the waste band so she followed him around holding up his pants.  Then I found out that she was a smoker but she said she was a healthy smoker because she never smoked while eating meals. I got on my anti smoking high horse of course.

Third roommate after being moved back to room 116 a young fellow came in suffering from sever migraine headaches he stayed fro 3 days till they managed to figure out some medication that resolved the problem. He too was an interesting young fellow and he was very interested that I taught martial arts as he had taken some kung fu when he was younger, and mentioned had he  continued with his martial arts he probably wouldn’t have gotten into as much trouble as he had as a youth. Seemed like a great kid.  But he too would disappear for a cigarette, so back on my anti smoking high horse. We had a great conversation, while he was waiting to be signed out.

My next roommate wasn’t as great as I was unable to build any repose with him, asked several times how he was doing and got no response. And his voice seemed to have a reaction with my drugs. As he was constantly talking to his mother in a language other than English. That was a very tough three days, as roommates become sounding boards. You explain your problem they explain theirs, discuss medication, treatments, the staff, and almost any topic is game for discussion, sometimes it’s even, I felt bad because I had no shoes until I met a man how had no feet. It doesn’t matter how bad you feel there is usually someone out there who is worse off.

My next roommate was an older gentleman who had a stroke and could not speak very well, despite this we did have short conversation which also helps pass the time. Even though we did not have long conversations just know he was there and would talk was reassuring. 

My present roommate is just a great guy. He too had a sudden onset ( I don’t know the medical term) but it seems he had a bleed into his spinal column and the swelling caused some nerve damage. And he can not walk. He has had surgery and hopefully there will be a full recovery. He too must go through many months of rehab.  The hard part for him is that he is a small business owner and needs someone to run his business, fortunately he seems to have a great support network similar to mine (not quite as good though) we have had allsorts of discussions about everything. Sometimes at 4 o’clock in the morning, sometimes its 6am sometimes at 9 pm sometimes at 11:30 pm he has great friends and family who I feel very comfortable having conversations with.  I was feeling really sorry for myself particularly at the time when the plane was leaving for France, then I found out that my roommate is also missing a great trip, him and his buddies (30 of them) were having there motorcycles, his being a Harley, transported  in a large trailer to Colorado where they were going to tour the grand canyon, and surrounding areas, on their motorbikes. So I’m not the only one missing a great trip.

Roommates have something in common and there seems to be a little bond formed that really isn’t formed with other visitors, friends and family, as you are both in it together.

~Glen

A Setback

Just as things get going, situations occur that set you back a bit from your immediate goals.  I was getting all set to go to Parkwood, probably would have been there by now. An ultra sound on Tuesday showed that I have a blood clot in my left leg, which can be a problem. On review of the ultra sound my doctor would not sign my release to go to Parkwood, as he wants to make sure the blood clot issue is cleared up before I leave.  I am now on additional blood thinners, including worfrin, cumadine and a heprin drip intervenes. So I guess it’s just a matter of time to see how it all works out. For the time being, Parkwood is off and this will continue to be my home address. 

On the other side I had physio today, in the torturer room, that they call a gym here. I was taken out of my chair and then they laid me on a flat table and then they tried to make me roll over by myself.  Perhaps, I better define the movements.  They put funny (really funny) neoprene booties so my feet don’t slip on the vinyl table top.  Then they ask me to bring my feet up so that my knees are bent and my feet are flat on the table, remember I am lying flat on my back.  So, I can slowly slide my right leg up and get it into position but my left leg doesn’t want to move very well, so with some assistance I eventually get my left leg into position.  It seems that my right side is stronger than my left, and it should supposedly be easier for me to roll left then right, the process is once my knees are up I must lift a hip off of the ground and then through my arm and shoulder in the direction I want to roll. With some assistance I was able to roll onto both sides, it seems I can get onto my right side better than my left and I was able to get on my side without assistance once.  Note: I would rather do a thousand kicks on a heavy bag.  My next task was to sit up on the edge of the table I am on.  This is a little difficult to describe, but I’ll try: visualize laying on the edge of a table on your right side, with your knees bent and then slide your feet off the table, and as your feet slide off the table try and push yourself upright using your right arm. Problem is I don’t have full control of my right arm and there is not really enough strength in my arm to lift my body up.  With a little assistance from my friendly physio’s I manage to get into a sitting position with my legs dangling over the table.  Then we started a few leg exercises and I do some leg extensions. Right leg is actually pretty good and I can extend it out and even hold my right leg straight the left leg is another problem due to the condition of my knee. It is hard to do a leg extension but I can move my leg forward, I can’t really hold it up very high.  I think that is mostly due to the condition of my knee.  Oh yes I forgot to mention that most of the time when they try to move me or my left leg it goes into spasm and cramps up.

Sitting, once they get me up into sitting position I put my right hand on the table and try to lock my elbow with my bicep and triceps.  Since I don’t have a lot of control over my left arm the physio puts it on the table in the correct position and I try to hold it there with a little bit of bicep strength that I have.  Here is the picture: I am sitting at the edge of the table, with my hands on the table, with physio sitting on a chair in front of me holding my hands in place. The second physio is on the table behind me holding me in an up right position. Now the task is, for me to contract the biceps in both my arms to try and stabilize my body, and then physio at my back slowly lets go and the one holding my hands slowly lets go, I have to tighten my stomach muscles as tight as I can to maintain an up right position, it is a very weird sensation, the closest thing I can compare it to is trying to maintain your balance while standing on one foot with your eyes shut.  If you don’t believe me try it.

Setback: blood clot, gains: rolled over on my side by my self, and was able to remain in a sitting position for about 60 sec. yeehaw.

~glen

            

Where My Head is at

Some people have been asking where my head is at. I have been describing all the physical stuff that goes on and I guess I better start at the beginning.

Which was when I was laying on the trail for 2 hours, after I hit my head…I was not knocked unconscious and I remember sliding down the trail.  It felt like I was floating down a stream and I actually wondered if I was ever going to come to a stop. I ended up in a sort of fetal position on my right side with my left arm up in front of my head. My legs were slightly bent and my left cycling shoe was still attached to the pedal. And there was some light from my bicycle headlight that was still on and pointing down the trail towards the road.  As soon as I hit I immediately knew my neck was broken and the only thing I could move were the toes on my right foot.

  Now the mental part, if any of you are old enough to remember laurel and hardy the first thing I actually said to my self was “it’s a fine mess you’ve gotten us into olie.” Then I started to think about my situation and for some reason I really didn’t get excited or anxious…don’t know why but, I think I should have. I started thinking how my life had changed in an instant and started thinking what it would be like in the future. However not know the extent of my injury and what my recovery would do; I really didn’t have any clue about where I would be.  I just kept thinking of Atienne and how far he had come along and I also took into consideration the incredible amount of work he had put in to get to where he was. 

I knew there would be a depression problem I built a very large door and I put the depression box inside the door, closed the door, locked it up very tightly, and threw away the key as far away from me as I could. The goal is to take the depression door to Sudbury leave it there and if I ever need it I have to go there to get it.  I started thinking about when I was going to be found on the trail I knew it was about 10 o;clock when I crashed and I know there is not a lot of activity on the trail after dark. It took me quite a while to work through, I got in my head that I would be there for at least 12 to 14 hours, mentally I seemed to be able to accept that basically because there was not a hell of a lot I could do about that.  My lowest moment on the trail was when I thought the farms truck was leaving and they weren’t coming down the trail. Hope seem to get high very quickly, but they can be dashed immidiatly. As it turned out the farmer had seen my bike lights on the trail and did come and find me and the rest is history.

When I am busy with people around or just the normal hospital activity around I can pretty much handle it….what I have to be carful of is when its it is quiet and I am alone and sometimes the tasks at hand do become daunting. Anytime those thoughts pop up I do try to discard them and get back on the right track as quickly as I can…just thinking about all of the people out there supporting helps my mind keep going in the right direction.  Another big positive here is roommates I have several fantastic ones and one that was not so good but he probably felt the same way about me …but he was only in here for three days.  Not only are roommates good to talk to it is great to watch them progress, and so far they have all left in 3 or 4 days.  For example Gord the one I have now I’m sure is going to be out of here quite soon. The bottom line about mental health is that you have to keep on top of it and try staying positive and appreciating all the little wee tiny gains.  One thing I do to stay occupied is do my kata in my head, I’m going to be really good at hein1 when I get out of here.  I haven’t got a Television yet to keep me occupied but I am looking into a voice activated computer, then I can do my own typing.

A hospital day

After the visit from Marianne, and those great massaging hands, and the visit from Kenny jobba, and the stories of his great ironman Canada finish, there wasn’t really a lot to look forward to on Tuesday. However people think that when you are in a hospital you are doing nothing but lay around in bed all day, this is not the case,

so here is today’s story. The doctors make their rounds at around 6, or 6:30 then the nurses come in with medication at around 7 or 8. Breakfast at 8.  I haven’t had a shower for awhile so I asked for a shower that they gracefully allowed. Even though it is a hell of a lot of work for them at probably one of the busiest times of the day. The first shower I had over a week ago they used a large commode chair which I fit in quite well. This time, they had a smaller water proof wheel chair to take me to the shower. Natasha my nurse and another nurse Ruth were assigned the task of showering me. The first job was to get me out of bed using a sling and a hoist. The first problem encountered was the chair was about three sizes too small. That is my legs were too long for my legs to fit on the foot plates. And given the issues with my left leg it wouldn’t bend to fit on the foot plate anyways. Once they got me in the chair at a precarious angle it was off to the shower room. With one nurse pushing the chair and the other bent over walking backwards preventing my bum leg from dragging on the floor Note: the shower room needs to be renovated. They wheeled the chair into the shower room and the 2 ladies started to remove my clothing. (first time I have ever been in a shower with 2 ladies.) they wash everything. Shampooed my hair while trying to keep me upright because I can’t keep my self in place.  After a minor dry off it was back to bed. I got back in bed because I was scheduled for an x-ray and an ultra sound. That meant hooking up the hoist…the flight of the phoenix back to bed.

Soon after The porter arrived with the stretcher to take me to x-ray. Interesting getting from the bed to a stretcher. I now know what a pancake feels like in a frying pan. They roll you over to one side, fire a plastic sheet under you, put the stretcher beside you at the same height as you bed. And two guys give you a big push and you slide off onto the stretcher. Just like the afore mentioned pancake. The next part is really interesting they have porters here whose only job is to transport patients from department to department. Today had the fastest ride ever, from my room to x-ray. They are expert drivers they never run into anything and they aren’t afraid to take the elevator regardless of how many people are waiting for it. They park me in the x-ray department and there I sit for like seems like forever. And that’s when all the silly things start to hurt. The bum is sore from sitting on the stretcher the old legs aren’t on quite the right position and there are at least 25 people who went into the x-ray room before I heard 2 of the technicians say whose that guy out there in the stretcher he’s been out there a long time….so it wasn’t only me. Finally I got in to the x-ray and they had a look at my shoulder which I though might have been dislocated…it wasn’t. then it was back into the waiting room to wait for a porter. The same young fellow can to get me and I think he was even quicker on the return trip then he was on the initial trip. Then it’s back to the room, slide the plastic sheet under me on the stretcher and the pancake routine again sliding me back into bed. Once back in bed Valerie the physio girl came in and said they wanted to see me at 1:00 I mentioned that I was going for an ultra sound at 1:00 so she said she would do some quick testing and then she would see me after 2. Half way through the testing which was being poked with a pin over various parts of my body they cam to take me to the ultra sound. On the way to ultra sound, they use ultra sound to check for blood clots on your legs. It’s a fairly slow process as they rub the probe all over your legs form top to bottom. The operator put the probe behind my knee and pushed very hard into my baker’s cyst which I had for years. She mentioned “oh there is the problem with your left leg” of course I asked her what she thought it was and her response was “I’ll put it in the report and the dr. will tell you. Hopefully it is something simple that will get rid of the issues in the left knee. We’ll see. Back to the waiting room to wait for a porter to get me back to the floor. And its now 2:30ish. Back in the room instead of going back into be I requested to be put into my wheel chair. They can’t do that from the stretcher. Since I didn’t have my sling on it was the pancake thing back into bed. Up on the lift into the chair. I had missed my lunch so Darcy was pushing me and my tray so I could have my lunch with a view of the city. On the way I met the physio girls who said oh you’re ready for physio …. No I have to eat my lunch. Sigh and they said ok….we will see you tomorrow. The rest of the day was spent in the chair. And then back into by 8;45 in time for dinner. it's now 20 after 10 and I am going to take my pills and hopefully got to la la land for most of the night.

And so the training begins

Everybody keeps telling me, from doctors, to nurses to orderlies to PCW’s that I got to get moving and keep moving. So I get about an hour of physio sometimes a bit more by Valerie the physiotherapist. and I have seen heather the occupational therapist who introduced me to a hand OT who gave me some wrist braces, as my hands were curled and they wanted that to stop. They do give my wrist some support but it has stopped some of my finger movement as I have no strength in my fingers. AS we mentioned my right hand works much better then my left and I am working on bicep and triceps strength in my right arm. I may be getting some custom built ones down the road…though I’m not sure. The left hand needs a little more work can’t move my fingers very much.  I still have a phantom left hand. I can tense up the muscles in my shoulders and if someone holds my left arm at the right angle I can tense my bicep and move an curl my arm slightly, a few cm. before I got here I was having problem with my left shoulder anyway as it was dislocating occasionally I have weak rotator cuff muscles when I moved my hand over my head my shoulder would start to roll out of its socket. What I fear is happening is when they are cranking my arm around now with zero muscle on my shoulder it may be coming out of the socket … I don’t think any more I know it has. So we will se what kind of support they can give me for my shoulder.

My hamstrings and calves which are pulling my toes down which I believe is called drop foot. So they want me to get high top running shoes or something that will give my feet support and keep my toes up.  From what I understand here they are going to continue to work on me …trying to roll over and maintain my body balance…I find it a little difficult concept…I can’t tense my stomach muscles. However with the physio’s assistance I am able to roll over on to my side and support my body weight with my arms. Now for the steener training…

Don’t know if there is a right way to go about this stuff. But I figure if you need a strong bicep you got to do curls…sets of curls to get there. Sam for triceps got to do some arm extensions. To that end I’ve given myself some routines of curls and extensions, and toe extensions, leg raises and then for the parts that don’t move, I try to move them even I just get a flicker in the muscle just to try to get some connection from here to there. Just a little training in perspective …but what it comes down to is I have to keep moving and movement causes strength so I have to start applying that to all the parts that don’t work that well.

~glen

CHANGE

I guess the old adage is: The more things change, the more things stay the same.

So this is the theme of to night’s blog.

First one is going to be about the physical. For example getting my pain pills every two hours, getting the tummy meds every 8 hours and the sleeping pill at ten o’clock, and the pill to prevent cramps every 8 hours, and the injection every night in my tummy to prevent blood clots. The things we really take for granted such as breathing changes, as I mentioned previously I have a UTI which I am taking an anti biotic for, but they also think I may have a chest infection, and I have had 2 x rays but I have heard nothing of the results.  The worst night was Thursday night.  When my nose dried up and my nostrils closed a bit and it was difficult to breath. The other problem with breathing is I don’t have a lot of lung capacity, so it is difficult to clear my airways.  So Thursday night I keep waking up feeling like I was suffocating but, I managed to make it through the night.  Having them turn me, right, left and on my back seems to help out with my breathing as well.  The other interesting thing is a fever, I had one as high as 38 degrees, and of course we all know that Tylenol brings a fever down, two extra strength Tylenol. What I didn’t know about Tylenol is …it makes you sweat. So while my temperature is dropping poor Darcy is mopping up buckets of sweat…as some of you know i have very fairly large sweat glands. The fever and the UTI and the lung infection seem to be under control with the antibiotics I am taking twice a day. My fever hasn’t come back.

The other change I would like to talk about is I am not really used to all of you out there saying such great and nice things about me….which is greatly appreciated and it does help.  I don’t want to become like the pro athlete who starts reading and believing his own press clippings and turns into a complete jerk. There has been mention that I am mentally tough tenacious, hardworking, have percervierence, positive outlook, determination, desire to succeed but, that’s really not me. That has been a group effort by a lot of people. From working out with Brantford harlequin’s rugby football club, distance running with marc banning and sensei john and many of my training partners, my karate workouts, all assisted in creating what ever mental toughness I supposedly have.  I learned it from the people around me because they kept going  so I had to, there were many many times I wanted to stop but the energy provided by my training partners kept me going. More examples of this are, training for a marathon, when I am not really a long distance runner, training with renchi and sensei john was the motivation to keep going.  There are other examples, weight lifting with my friends on the rugby club, reached maximum weight lifts because they were there. Here is another example I was an absolutely terrible swimmer when I took up triathlons , still am…  I joined the tillsonburg masters swim club which was a fantastic group of people, with an exceptional young coach, who wanted us old farts to succeed. Mention should go to Vern Woodward, a great swimmer and was my role model, Who made me work very hard at swimming, given that support  I was eventually able to swim 4 km and compete in ironman triathlons.  All the other accolades are fantastic and great to hear however, Darcy’s explanation is, you’re excessive at everything you do. The bottom line here is I really need all you guys out there and just knowing that you are there is an incredible force to keep me going. Oh yes, Kelly Viennenue( it was nice to see keith too)  post yesterday about Darcy is absolutely true, I don’t know where she musters the strength to do what she is doing and put up with my constant giving of directions. Oh ya Meghan is pretty good too, Kelly it’s your turn soon.

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU, I CAN’T DO IT WITH OUT YOU!!!

Note if this rambles a bit it could be from the 2 mg of oxy cotton that I took at 6 o’oclock