Christmas at Parkwood

December 27, 2011

Christmas at Parkwood

Christmas is a little different here, however, it did turn out quite well. 

Last Tuesday, the 20^th, my roommate and I with Darcy of course, went to the Mall.  That was my first time out in a wheelchair.  We were taken there in the van from the hospital and I went around the mall with Darcy.  The first thing I noticed different was that we just tried to get through the door not thinking there was a handicapped door with buttons that open the door for you and hold it open.  So while Darcy and I were struggling with the door, four people came to assist.  I was amazed in the mall by the number of people who were willing to help.  It seems that somebody in a wheelchair is “a different sight” and they look at you but as soon as you catch their eyes they turn away which I found very interesting.  When I was sitting in the hallway in the mall waiting for Darcy who was in a store that I could not get in, people would ask me if I was alright and the same happened in The Bay.  One of my physios who works my arm when he found out I was going to the mall, he suggested I go into the Royal Dalton china shop just to check out my wheelchair skills……..note, I didn’t go.  I just ran into one thing when I was there and that was a display in a shoe store that was on wheels……whew…  It just made it easier for me to get into the store.  The vehicle that took us to the mall was a small bus that could hold several passengers and four wheelchairs.  It is very interesting getting all locked down, they lock your wheels from the front and the back and then put a seatbelt right around me and the chair.  I was in the spot right at the back of bus behind the wheels so it was a little bouncy but I got used to that quickly.

I was able to talk to my daughter in Australia on Skype.  She gave me a tour of the house and said that she is going to be spending Christmas camping on the beach.  I tried to contact he Christmas Eve on Skype but my Skype wasn’t working…….grrrrrrrrrrr  Is anybody has a Skype name, send it to me and maybe we can talk.

In PT, I was putting approximately 90% of my bodyweight on my right leg.  I’m moving from my chair to the bench in physio using a slide board which is they stick one end under my butt and the other end on the bench and then I lean way forward and with a physio behind me and a physio in front of me I slide across the board to the bench where I can sit by myself while the physios get set up.  On Friday, we managed to do it with just one physio as my right leg and my right arm were able to assist.    When I am sitting on the table the physio gets an exercise ball and I lean forward and she puts it in my back and straightens me up over the ball while she sits on it.  Then I bend forward and I can almost touch the ground with my right hand and then I touch other various targets which is strengthening my lower back and my core.  Again they put me in a sling, hoisted me off the bench and with physio assistant says very loudly “Get the stick, the pinyata (sp) is up.”   I stood on my right leg for about 10 minutes and there was a little weight on my left foot, enough to stretch my calf muscle.  Then I had a little rest and went up for a few more minutes and then rode the bike for a half hour.

In OT, again I worked for an hour on my right arm with weights so it is getting a lot stronger and my left hand arm for about 45 minutes.  It is starting to move.  My fingers want to curl on my left hand but if they are worked or moved for about 30 seconds they loosen up.  My left bicep is tightening up and we are working on the tricep to make it stronger to keep my arm straight.  The fingers are moving more each day but they have a long way to go.

In the morning, I have ADL (Assisted Daily Living).   A physio assistant comes in and I can now put a T-shirt on with one arm as long as it is not too tight.  I wash my face and wash anything I can reach with my right hand and then he does the rest.  This might not seem like much but I can now brush my own teeth…….yeehaw.  If I wasn’t on blood thinners, I may even try shaving, so when I am off the rat poison (Cumoden), I may try shaving again.  So there is a song that the ladies wrote and they sang it to the nurses on Christmas Eve.  The Twelve Days of Christmas which they renamed Crappy Christmas at Parkwood.  I won’t write out the whole song, but here’s the twelfth day which tells you what the whole song is about.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true nurse gave to me…

12 High fibre diets

11 Stool Softeners

10 Digital Stims!

9 X-Lax

8 Milk of Mag

7 Metamucil with Cylium

6 Colace

5 FLEET ENEMAS

4 Peg-Lytes

3 Dulcolax

2 Senekot

And a double dose of Lactulose!

Christmas Day, my wife, my daughter and her boyfriend and my sister-in-law brought in turkey dinner with all the fixings.  They had to use the microwave but it was very enjoyable.  We even had a tablecloth on one of the tables in lounge.  Of course, there is no PT or OT for four days but I really needed a rest as I have been working quite hard for the two weeks prior.  They do give me homework to do, lifting weights, etc. etc. (which I haven’t done yet, but I will before bed tonight). 

Here is how our health care system works.  My roommate had arranged to go home for four days.  He was going to leave on Friday and come back on Tuesday.  He called CCAC as he would need a couple of hours’ assistance each day that he was home.  He had it all planned and was very much looking forward to it.  On Thursday, he received a phone call that now there was not a personal service worker available for him.  He had to cancel his home visit.  Note, his family did come in on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

23 more days ‘til my new knee.I am working hard on the left leg to get it as strong and flexible.  I am extending it out to about 10 degrees and flexing it to 95 degrees.  I am going to try and have that under 10 and over 100 by the 19^th.  We shall see. 

Happy New Year to everybody.

Thanks for listening.

I Told You I Would Share Everything

December 19, 2011

I Told You I Would Share Everything

Yikes, I have driven over my pee bag or had problems with it twice this week.  Once I thought everything was connected but it wasn’t so I filled my seat cushion with pee so they had to get me out of my chair again and give me dry shorts and a new lift sheet and a new cushion.  I thought it was quite humorous but I don’t think they did.  And then on Saturday in my new chair which doesn’t tilt so there isn’t a place to hang the bag, and they finally found one they thought was safe but it seems that the front wheel wore a hole in it and I stopped at the nurses’ station and went back to visit some friends and Darcy was behind me and said there’s a big trail of pee coming from your chair.  When I got into the room and stopped it then became a pool.  So the nurses came in and emptied the rest of the bag and sent me to my room where I got a new bag.

Physio and OT are going really well as I am trying to get a lot stronger before my surgery on January 19^th.  My iron was a little low in my blood, just a touch under normal, but the doctor here thought we should bump it up as high as we could get it for the surgery.  I have to go to the hospital on December 30^th for preadmission and then again on January 12^th for preop.  I assume they will be taking lots of blood and other stuff and explaining the surgery and what it will be like after.  I have been told here that I will be somehow weight-bearing on my knee the day after surgery.  I don’t know how they will get me up, it could be on a tilt table where they strap you to the table and then tilt it upright.  It should be fun…..  I am assuming I will have a lot of pain pills.  We will see.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes but I think 65 is just a number and the only important number I really remember is my 16^th birthday when I could get my driver’s license.  But I want all you guys to keep working to keep the Old Age Security fund topped up.  Thanks a lot.

Thanks to the Rocket and Robert for bringing the cake on Thursday and sharing it with me and some of my buddies.  And thanks to George, Grandpa and John for bringing the cake on Friday morning and written on the cake was “Happy Birthday Rented Mule” because George told all the people at OT and PT to work me like a rented mule, but they also told me that I have now graduated from ‘rented mule’ to ‘jackass third class’.  Thanks to all the visitors on Sunday, it was a great day.

So back to my fitness training, I can now sit up on the edge of the bench for several minutes without my hands propping me up.  The worst problem sitting up is my lower back but I will just have to work on that.  I didn’t get up today on my foot but I probably will every day for the rest of the week.  I am on the bicycle for a half hour and I have increased the tension.  I started at one and I am now at six.  And according to the machine, when I am pedaling forward the left leg is doing 45 to 50% of the work so hopefully it is getting stronger.  So until the January 19^th surgery I will be trying to get that leg as strong as I can.

 In OT they are really working hard on my right arm and shoulder to get it stronger and my left arm gets an hour workout as well and the hand is starting to move more every day.  Tomorrow I am going to the mall with my roommate, and perhaps one other person, with Darcy to do some Christmas shopping.  It should be very interesting because that will be the first time I will be out in my wheelchair.  The biggest problem is I have to put on long pants which I have only had on once in the past four months.  The strange thing is Darcy got me a golf shirt with a collar and that is the first collar I have worn since the injury.  For everyone else after a few minutes you can’t feel the collar, but I could feel it on my neck all day.  It’s a really nice shirt but I think I will have to cut the collar off.

It’s either me learning the routine here or the nurses learning my routine but everything is going a lot smoother now and I was probably a big pain in the butt to the nurses when I first got here.  Most of it was probably due to my knee which was very painful but something seems to have happened to it in the past few weeks because I can move it around a lot easier now and they are amazed I am not yelling at them when they move my left leg.  It could a combination of things:  on the bike again helps strengthen my quads; and I have a constant motion machine that I use a minimum of an hour a day that bends my leg from about 15 degrees straight out to a flexion of 92 degrees.  The goal is to get the knee to bend a 100 degrees or more before surgery.  We shall see. 

My claustrophobia is improving every day.  I can now ride in elevators by myself and not have a panic attack.  I never ate in my room because I could feel a panic attack coming and would eat in the lounge which I called my private dining room, but now I have no problem being in my room in my wheelchair.  That in itself is an accomplishment.   I have one more hurdle to cross though and that is to use the washroom on a commode and I will be working on that for the next little while.  I’m spilling all the beans now.  I used to use the excuse that I wouldn’t ride in elevators because I wanted the exercise walking up the stairs, but it really was that I couldn’t get on the elevator.  So my recommendation to anyone who has panic or anxiety attacks is get some really good counseling which I have had here and I’m on some medication which seems to help.  It’s like an anvil has been taken off my back so it’s working for me and hopefully if anyone else out there has panic or anxiety attacks, admit to yourself what the problem is and address it. Remember, mental illness is like any other disease, if you have it admit it and you can probably get it cured.  I’ve lived with this for probably 40 years and I have made many, many excuses and got very good at avoiding places that would give me a panic attack.  So if any good comes out of this crash, getting over my panic attacks is a huge thing. 

I’m sitting in the lounge on the fourth floor looking out onto the field where there are four deer grazing, and I have seen a coyote there and a flock of turkeys.

Thanks for listening.

mid week

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

I know I sent my last blog out on Saturday, but funny things happen here.  I was in my room eating my lunch, Darcy wasn’t here so a “student” nurse set me up.  I am in my wheelchair eating my lunch and she hung my pee bag on the bed.  I do wear a condom catheter (I’ll let you figure out what that is) but I had to be at OT at 1 o’clock so I finished my lunch and drove away with my bag still attached to the bed.  As soon as the tube got tight, I stopped immediately.  A nurse was going by and I said I need some help.  She asked if it was an emergency, and of course I thought it was, because I had rolled over the tubing with my wheelchair and the bag was still attached to the bed.  We managed to untangle it, the tube from the wheels, and I was on my way.  It was funny after but not at the time.

My roommate has had 5 surgeries on his neck since June and he had his last surgery in the middle of November and was back in here but unfortunately they changed his pain medication and he was unable to sleep for 4 or 5 nights.  He finally convinced the doctor that he needed his medication increased.  He knows what he is talking about when it comes to pain control as he broke his neck in 1987 and was in here for 5 months and walked out.  He is now rehabbing and hopefully with his pain under control he will be able to get some sleep and head down the road to recovery.  He is an inspiration to me because he says he just never ever gives up.

My physio is going quite well.   As I probably mentioned I am sitting on the side of a bench and I can almost touch the ground with my finger, not quite but almost.  It seems that my lower back is getting stronger and I can sit up by myself on the bench for quite a while.  Instead of using the lift to move me from the bench to my wheelchair, they use a slider board which is a piece of plywood about a half inch thick, 8 inches wide and about 2 feet long.  And this is how it works – I lift up one side and they shove the board under my butt, I lean forward, a physio in front of me and one behind.  On a count of three, I push with my right leg and my right arm and they slide me out on the board.  I have learned that I need to wear gotchies when sliding on the board because bare skin doesn’t slide very well.  Now I have a really boney butt so I certainly know when I am sitting on a board.  There are three moves, first they slide me onto the board, second they slide me half way across and third they move me into my chair.  The hard part is when they jam the board under my butt and when they take it out.  So now what I have to learn to do is to do it by myself. 

At the present time, with only one arm working well, I can lift about 20% of my weight so to transfer from a chair to whatever, I will need at least two people to assist.  I can’t use a slider board to transfer to my bed because I have an air mattress and the board would just sink down into it.

I have reduced my pain killers a great deal.  I take 9 mg of longlasting Dilaudid at 8 am and 6 mg at 8 pm and I am allowed to have 2 mg every two hours if I need it.  I haven’t taken any additional for two weeks.  What I think is happening is, I was having acupuncture on my left leg and they were putting at least five needles in it and one of the physios suggested that I get tacks put in.  I immediately thought of carpet tacks and was a little apprehensive.  When they explained to me that it is just a small circular band-aid about 3/8” across with a millimeter long needle in it that they stick into your skin, I now have three tacks – one on my foot which is called the liver spot, and two just below my kneecap which is called the eyes of the knee.  I cannot believe the pain relief that I am getting because two weeks ago they had to be very careful touching my leg and now they can pick it up and move it around with relatively little pain.  I was never a believer in acupuncture, but something has to have helped the pain in my knee.  The constant motion machine that I use 1-2 hours daily is now flexing my knee from about 15 degrees stretched out up to 90 degrees.  The surgeon who is replacing my knee says I need it as straight as I can get it and up to 100 or 110 degrees flexion.  I will be working on that.  I only have another 20 degrees to go…..yikes!  But if I move it up slowly, I think I will be able to get it there.

Perhaps in my next blog I’ll have a list of all the meds I am taking.  For somebody who has never taken any pills, I have sure made up for it.

Catch ya later, Glen

**it happens, what happens next is up to you

** It Happens

I met a very interesting young man yesterday.  5 years ago  when he was 18 years old he broke his neck while he was wrestling with a friend ( he was quarterback of his football team, track star and on the swim team). He is permanently  in a wheel chair, but it doesn’t seem to hinder him in the least.  He came back to the floor and all the nurses were hugging him.  He is just a great young man.  He has gone to college, he is taking marketing and he is going to graduate soon.  He is from Sarnia and his community raised 200 000+ to build him a house and purchase a vehicle. He now says it is time to payback. So he has started a company selling t- shirts that say ** it happens on the front and on the back it says what happens next is up to you. He has a web site www.whathappensnext.ca which will be up and running soon. You will be able to purchase the t-shirts on-line and the proceeds go to the Rick Hanson Foundation.  He is also an inspirational speaker and he met Rick Hanson in Sarnia and  rick invited him to BC to be at the finish of the many in motion relay he is currently.  His name is Dan Edwards.

Its been sort of a catch 22 week.  First I was told I was out on the 22^nd of December, and then Darcy met with the director and the decision could be make at the team meeting on Thursday.  Since I am having the surgery on my knee on January 19^th my release day will be Jan. 19.  If the surgery is canceled my release date will be Jan 12^th. All good news.  His becomes a bit of a catch 22 as after the surgery they may bring me back here for more rehab as hopefully I will be able to stand on my left leg as it is my understanding for knee replacements they have you weight baring the day after surgery.  That will be interesting.  I have been up in the sling suspended from the lift every day this week putting weight on my right leg and I was up for more than 10 minutes on Friday.  I am getting over the nausea and the dizziness while standing, I never realized how heavy I was or how tall I was even though I only weigh 164 pounds.  I am still riding the bike for half hour a day and my left leg is still doing 30% of the work. In OT, they are working my right arm a lot with a weight program. And I have increased the weight  3 times since I have started, in the beginning of November. 

The catch 22 in all of this is when they replace my knee will I be up in walking or be able to stand? Will I need a wheel chair, will I need a lift will I need a hospital bed or will I need manual wheel chair? If we leave it too long and I need all of those things they may not be available if I am released at the end of January.  The plan may be after my surgery to bring me back in for rehab on my leg. And get me standing or walking or whatever is going to happen. Now that I am going to be here over Christmas, all my friends will be leaving. Which will be a little sad because they have become very close friends.  The other unknowns are I don’t know what is going to happen when I get to university hospital for my knee surgery.  As here at parkwood, as I probably mentioned before they have bowel care, which I get a depository and then they lift me into a commode, I don’t know what will happen at  UH, If I don’t have a depository and I have to use a bed pan,…it will be an interesting 4 or 5 days.  I am looking forward to the surgery as supposedly it will remove all the pain from my knee. At least after the surgery pain is gone, and I am assuming they will give me enough medication to help.  The good news is I am decreasing the pain killers I am on here.  I get 9 mg of long lasting dilodid (hydro morph)  and I get 6 more mg at 8 at night. In between I am allowed 2mg  every 2 hours as required.  I haven’t had an additional pain killer since lst Wednesday.   I have a had a few withdrawal symptoms, and they are quite strange.  My forehead goes numb, and then eyelids, so it looks like I am really tired and my eyes start to water, and my ears go numb and the back of my head goes numb…I’m pretty sure it is with drawl symptoms  because when it first started if I took 2mg they would go away.

I was outside for the first time in my wheelchair and went to look at wheelchairs and commodes I went in a wheelchair accessible taxi, with was a dodge van that you enter from the back.  It seems the opening in the back is only 49 inches high and sitting in the wheel chair I am 53. So it was an interesting ride, having to lean forward to get in and keep bent over for the whole ride…good thing it was only 10 minutes.  On the way back they had lowered my seat in my wheelchair by about 2 half inches which wasn’t quite enough  and I forgot to duck and I wacked my head getting in to the van.

 as many or some of you may know I am very claustrophobic, and I have been working on that and I was able to get into the van without any problem. Before this incident I would never had gone in the back of a van in a wheel chair, I have had come counseling and I am on some medication which seems to have relieved my claustrophobia. Because I am now able to ride on elevators, and go into small spaces. Seems I was very good at hiding my claustrophobia, I wouldn’t go in elevators as I said I needed the exercise and I always drove my car so there was never a chance of me having to sit in the back seat.  And I would even have difficulty sitting on the inside of a both, and I would get out of that one by saying I would have to go for a pee.

Physio and OT say that I am continuing to improve. My left arm is now moving more.  It needs to go a lot further but it is improving. So with my extension to jan 19 I will continue to have therapy.  One of the tough things here is listening to patients in other rooms crying for help you just feel so badly for them. And there is nothing you can do for them.  But it is great to see people improve from not being able to stand to walking with a walker and sometimes unassisted. As you can see their  daily improvement,  which is motivation for me.

Thanks to the sarge they worked me like a rented mule.

talk about inspiration

Friday, December 2, 2011

Talk about Inspiration……

Sensei Helene’s son, Alain, was in an accident in January and has been in a wheelchair and stood up for the first time yesterday…….Wow what an inspiration for me!  Keep up the good work Alain.  If you’re standing, you’ll soon be walking.  I know it’s really tough to do but just keep working at it and you will get there.

The good news for me is that I was standing up in the sling yesterday and today.  Yesterday they got me up three times for about 2 minutes each time with my right leg doing some weight bearing and they bent my left leg so it wasn’t weight bearing an awful lot so it didn’t hurt my knee.  But I did have my right leg on the floor and I didn’t realize two things…..I didn’t realize how tall I was because I hadn’t been up there for a while, and thank god I only weigh 164 pounds because it would be a lot more difficult if I was 175.  It is an amazing sensation having weight go through your body again.  Hopefully, when they fix my left knee and I am pretty sure the surgery is a go for the new year, it will be very interesting having weight on both legs.  Today, I was up for a total of at least 15 minutes and the therapist told me just to concentrate on the Exit sign, which I did, and I had no problem feeling dizzy.  The second time I was up, I was up for more than 8 minutes and I was determined not to ask to be put down, but I let them tell me when I had had enough.  I also transferred from the bed to the wheelchair on a board noting that there were two people assisting me but I think I gave them some help with my right leg and right arm.  It’s a funny sensation as I bend forward I think I am going too far and I am going to land on my face but it is probably not that way at all and there is a therapist there holding me up.  But leaning forward it supposed to take the weight off my butt and put it on my legs but since I only have one good leg, I don’t get a lot of weight off and I doubt if I could do the transfer by myself at this point in time.

It was interesting today in physio when I transferred from my chair to the table (the table height is adjustable, and it’s padded of course) so I was sitting on the edge and the one therapist in front of me left to move my wheelchair and I assumed the other one was behind me but she came up beside me adjusting things so I was actually sitting up by myself with my feet on the floor for about three minutes…..yeehaw….  Then I was on the bike for a half hour and my left leg is still doing about 30 to 40% of the work. 

In OT today, they really worked my right arm with the weights, and I am actually lifting 3 times as much weight as I was at the beginning of November.  Initially I had a very sore left shoulder and my scapula (shoulder blade) was sticking out because the muscles weren’t strong enough to hold it in.  When I slept it was like sleeping on a plate sliding around on your back.  Since I have been doing all the lifting on my right arm and shoulder, the therapist makes me keep my shoulders back which has strengthened the muscles around my scapula so it no longer floats around.  So today, my OT therapy now is one hour on my right arm lifting weights, and about 45 minutes working on my left arm and hand which seems to be coming around.  I can move some of my fingers and I am starting to straighten my wrist.  My bicep and tricep in my left arm are getting stronger, and my whole left arm is starting to move more. 

I don’t know if it is me or the nurses, but I seem to be getting into a routine that works for both of us.  They are being very careful with my knee now and they haven’t hurt my knee for the last couple of weeks. 

It’s amazing to be here and see the progress of other patients who leave the hospital and come back for therapy.  My old roommate left and is living in an apartment on his own in London.  He does get some nursing care but basically he is doing everything himself.  He is now walking in the swimming pool by himself just being held up by a noodle……..sounds good to me.  Hopefully, he will be able to go home before Christmas.

That’s all for now, thanks for listening.