As I said before I am starting to get into the routine here. I know why they call people who are in the hospital patients, because you sure have to have a lot of it. My biggest problem is, I can’t get out of bed and into my wheelchair by myself. . .yet. I must rely on staff to hoist me out of bed and plop me into my chair. That would be fine if I was the only person here, but they do have other patients they need to look after, go figure. I really have to plan my chair time, problems are I can’t sit on my butt too long or I will start getting pressure sores, so I try to limit my time in the chair to four hours. I get in my chair about 10:15am so I can be at physio by 10:30am. I get done physio about Noon – then I have my lunch in my chair, then I have to be at OT by 2pm so there is no time to get me out of the chair after lunch and before OT. OT is suppose to go from 2-3pm but it sometimes goes longer, so if I get back to my room after 3:30pm staff doesn’t have time to get me out of my chair and back in so I can be ready for dinner. So at the time of writing this blog (6pm) I have been in my chair since 10:15 this morning. I probably wont get out of my chair now till 6:30, if I don’t get out of my chair at 6:30pm I’ll be in my chair until 8pm – which is probably way too long to be sitting in one spot. I have found that this amazing chair that I am in does tilt a way back and I can in fact take pressure off my butt, by titling it. Right now I’ve been in my chair for 6 and a half hours and I really need to get out of it.
PhysioTherapy
Physiotherapy went well today. They got me sitting up, with one physio kneeling on the table behind me and one in a chair in front they stabilized me and they stretched open my back and made me sit tall. The physio in front has a towel wrapped around my back just below my kidneys and she pulls so that I sit up as tall as I can. I am now able to keep my head up and sort of hold my body up. So they say I did very well but that could be the line they tell everybody. But, it did feel good to sit up tall. I am now keeping my head up straighter for longer periods of time. Then they put me on the bike for 30 minutes and I did my usual spin forward for 4 and half minutes, 30 second rest and 4 and half backwards. I got a kilometer further then usual today. . .5.5 km Yeehaw! But, when I do work harder then I should, I do suffer a bit after as now my right leg feels like it wants to go into spasm all the time. I guess I’ll just have to remember that for next time I’m on the bike.
Occupational Therapy
I am in a GRASP study and they test my hands every three months as they are trying to design a tool to try and measure what function will return to hands. Test involves all sorts of neat things, they check my hands with little nylon probes that give a range of pressures they start with the finest one which I couldn’t feel at all. They touch you at various spots on fingers to see if you can feel. My right hand works quite well, but I don’t have a lot of sensory feel yet. My left hand I think has a little better sensory feel, but very little movement. Then they do strength testing, how strong I am in pressing down my thumb and curl resistance when lifting up my arm. They log all the information and then do it again in three months. They also check some fine motor skills, I have to take 9 pegs of one side of a board and put them in holes on the other and it’s timed, they count the number of misses or ones I drop. I think I dropped two or three and did it in 59 seconds. You are only allowed one practice session. I think I could do a lot better with a little practice. The next test was a little more difficult, I had to pick up keys off the table and put the key in the right position and put it in a lock and turn it 90 degrees. I was able to do it in the practice session, but in the timed session I dropped the key before I got it in. The next one was really difficult, they put 4 nuts on the table and I had to put them back on the thread and screw them on. There was a big one which was atleast 3/8 of a inch but I wasn’t able to thread them on. The next task was I lad to pick up a loonie, a quarter, a nickel and a dime and put them in a slot.I dropped the loonie, I was able to get the quarter the nickel and the dime in the slot. If I Had a lot of practice I could do a lot better – but I guess that’s not the purpose of the study, it’s to see what my fine motor skills are now. So hopefully this data will help them and getting a good tool to measure hand response.
I finally got to bed. And I’m laying a little bit on my right side waiting for bowel care and a shower, which should happen sometime around 8 or later, probably later.
Visitors who are coming now I put to work as I need my left hand worked on quite a bit, it’s called ranging where they move the fingers of my hand to put the tendons through the whole range of motion that they normally go through. Problem is with the left hand it has been moving much, so it is very painful when they push my fingers down. None the less, it’s needed. Some people have magic hands, some don’t. Fortunately today and yesterday there were people here who did have magic hands – Cathy from work did a great job and so did Grandpa who was here today. Linda also did a great job and I really liked the cheese cake, even though I couldn’t eat it all. . .Kelly says it was yummy. All the cookies I have got have been great, Nancy’s rice krispy squares are fantastic, and the peanut butter cookies are wonderful – but I have to be careful or I’ll be weighing three hundred pounds when I get out of here.
Next blog will be about all the little things that bug me in here. There are one or two.
Hi Glen. This is fascinating to read your story. I heard about this from the Harlequins grapevine. Sorry to hear the news but pleased to see your attitude for making the most of the situation. I was just recently telling someone here a story about the game when you protected me from some big ugly twit from the UK or Wales when we played for Ontario (Fletcher's Fields in TO)-- about 1984 or so). I remember we arrived late due to traffic and then played this match. There were a lot of spectators too. He is a big second row player with a massive elbow. He was older and used his elbow like a crowbar. I had never experienced someone cheat so much. Thanks.....
ReplyDeleteI wish you well. I look forward to reading your stories. I am living in Australia now. I spent 10 years in New Zealand as well. Lots of media coverage here with the Rugby World Cup. The Canadians did pretty good against the All Blacks. They scored two tries ..... the All Blacks scored 10 but that is another story.
Take care and good luck - ed bernacki