Day 9: One Day, One Step, One Journey Yesterday was Saturday and it was a light day as far as rehabilitation is concerned. I first worked with Carrie. It was occupational therapy time. At first she brought this “puzzle” to the table that involves wooden shapes that you have to match the shapes to the “slots” in the board, there are many shapes. I would guess 50-60 pieces that are cut into various shapes and sizes. There rectangles, circles, and octagon shapes, and shapes I don’t know the name of. There are shapes like one way signs, curved arrows signs, and even three different SUPERMAN shields that are on the puzzle board. I didn’t want to play that as I had completed it last week. While challenging, it was not a good day to play that, besides that I only had 30 minutes of occupational therapy and that “game” had taken me more than 30 minutes to complete in the past. Instead it was time for JENGA. Carrie placed these weighted wrist weights on my arms, each weighing five (5) pounds and the game began. After move after move the “Jenga tower” began to grow. Move after move it began to wobble and sway until it would no more and I yelled “Jenga” as the last move toppled the tower. Carrie toppled the tower, I was victorious! I was basking in my victory until Carrie said, “Now you get to put it back in the box.” But was fun to bask in the glory of winning my first Jenga game. Now back to my room to wait until 11:30am to await for Karen to work me out. Karen told me that I was gonna stand on the parallel bars and practice standing and working on my core strength and my balance. I told her I was not sure about all that as Dr. Matt was not in the room and I did not know if she would be able to “hold me up.” She said she was not going to hold me up, I was gonna have to do it. Mom and dad arrived around 11:00AM so we had about 30 minutes to visit before Karen came to my room to go down to the gym. We visited for a little while about dad’s garden and the tomatoes they are able to get off. Dad brought me four small roma tomatoes that were delicious. I can’t wait to see the whole garden and how well it is producing. Dad said he was going to have plenty of tomatoes this year and the squash and bell peppers were doing well and producing well as well. One subject that they DID NOT discuss with me because they were under strict orders from Patrick not to speak of is the on-going bathroom renovation that Pat and his friend Mike are working on. Mom did say that they went and bought about $1500.00 in supplies from Lowe’s to get them started on the handicapped bathroom that they are building for me. That is all I could get out of them. They did say it would look nice when they were through. The $1500.00 were monies that over 100 people have donated to on my behalf. I would like to say a big THANK YOU for everyone who has donated to helping me. I certainly appreciate it, every little bit helps, that is for sure. If you would like to donate to the on-going renovations you can still do so by going to gofundme/8rsdrc and making your donation. All monies donated will be used for expenses associated with my rehabilitation. All donations are greatly appreciated and recovery. 11:30 arrived and there was a knock at my door. It was Karen, she was ready to get me in an upright position. She helped put my weight bearing boot on and then down to the parallel bars we went. Once into position we talked about technique, breathing and proper execution of the exercise. When I thought I was ready to give it the old heave ho I attempted and I just could not get the quadriceps in my right leg to exert the power to get me up. Time to breath, time to reach down and tell myself, “you got this.” It was another pull and I was up. All-in-all I raised up and stood up 4 times today. Each time I was up over a minute with the longest time standing for 1:20 seconds. Yay! Yes, I know that may not seem like much time to be standing on one leg but I was proud of it and will strive for longer times each time I am standing up. I am sure I will work with Matt and Cole all next week and they will work with me on standing techniques and the onto standing with a walker, then using my good leg to stand, turn and pivot to do the transfers from the wheelchair to the bed to the wheelchair and from the commode to the wheelchair. All things that a fully functional person does not think about, but things I think about every day. It is now 6:00am on Sunday. Let’s see what today will bring. I am not scheduled any PT time so it is a “free” day for me. Hopefully I will have a room full of visitors. Hopefully Lacie and Cameron will come by as well as Kelley Adams, she teased me yesterday about bringing dinner to me, that would be a fun time, but we shall see if it will be today or perhaps another day. Heres hoping everyone has a great day! Remember: One Step at a Time!
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 11:05:00 +0000