I walked today

Today was a big milestone.  I walked 5 feet today both in the pool and in the therapy gym.  In the pool, I could only take tiny steps.  The water helped me move my feet a lot.  Later in the day, my therapist  had me try to walk in the gym between the parallel bars and at first I couldn't move my feet because I had too much friction on my feet with my shoes on.  Then she took a piece of paper and wrapped it around my toes and taped it to my shoes.  That allowed my feet to easily slide across the floor with very little friction.  After that, I  walked about 5 feet holding onto the parallel bars. 

On Tuesday, my rehab doctor, Dr. Latorre, met with my PT and my PT and my nurse for that day to discuss my progress and plan for discharge.  He set my tentative discharge date for August 3rd.  This hospitalization will end up being a total of 3 weeks, 1 week in the main hospital and 2 weeks in the rehab hospital.  Stan was really hoping that I wouldn't have to be in rehab as long since I was just in rehab only 3 months ago.  I learned a lot of skills that I would need to use while I was weak.  However, I was too weak to use many of those skills to start with.  I couldn't sit up when I 1st got to rehab so I couldn't  even transfer with the slide board.  I had to be moved with the lift.  Now I can transfer from the bed to chair and to the toilet by doing a stand and pivot.  I put my legs in the position I need the to be, stand up and  turn my body.  My legs don't move at all during this type of transfer.  My arms do most of the  work.  It's basically just hopping from the bed to the chair using my arms for support.  Going from my chair to the toilet, I use the grab bars next to the toilet to hoist myself up and I swing my hips over.  It's getting easier to move this way each day.

Tomorrow Stan and I  will celebrate our 27th wedding anniversary.  I am so grateful to have such a wonderful man for my husband. He has been  my rock through the last 11 years as I have battled MS and  now whatever this latest neurological illness is.  Our marriage is stronger now than  it ever has been.  I can honestly say that we have never had a fight.  We have disagreed on things and  had discussions about them, but we have never had a fight about them.   Dr. Latorre is giving me a pass tomorrow so I can leave the hospital for a little while so we can actually celebrate.  We are going to go out to eat somewhere, probably Joe's Crab Shack, then we haven't figured out what we are going to go do after that.  We may go home for a little while before we have to come back to the hospital.  We have to be back  here before midnight.  We are going to leave as soon as my therapy is finished tomorrow.  I'm hoping they have me scheduled earlier in the day rather than going late into the afternoon.