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.
Showing posts with label pool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pool. Show all posts
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Monday, April 23, 2018
The end is in sight
It has been a really long couple of weeks. I was 1st admitted to the hospital on March 24th. I have been in the hospital for 4 weeks and 3 days now. 1 week prior to this admission, I had spend 24 hours in the hospital with chest pain that turned out not to be cardiac related but the beginning of an asthma exacerbation. I am scheduled to go home on Friday. I can't wait. 5 weeks of being in the hospital is a really long time. It's my new hospitalization record. I hope it stands for a long time.
Over the weekend, it seems like my strength increased a lot. On Friday I started being able to stand from my wheel chair and then pivoting over to the toilet. It was pretty challenging at first, but it is pretty easy now. It seems a little silly that the staff has to supervise me since they just watch to make sure I am ok. I couldn't really take any steps on Friday on land or in the pool but today I was able to walk about 20 feet both within the parallel bars and with a walker.
Tomorrow my PT and OT will have a meeting with my rehab doctor to discuss my progress. They are going to recommend that I be allowed to be independent in my room for all of my activities in preparation for discharge on Friday. This week we are going to continue to work on arm and hand strength by working on my quilt block, leg strength and flexibility, core strength, fine motor skills and lots more. When I go home, I will have Rehab without Walls which will come to my house for a few months to do therapy and continue working on all of these things.
I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about the hospital so I can start writing about other things. I also plan on starting to write some of my like history in this blog. I have a booklet with life history prompts and I plan on using those prompts as my post title and then my entire post with center around that prompt. Maybe one of these days I can just make my blog into a book with some minor editing.
Over the weekend, it seems like my strength increased a lot. On Friday I started being able to stand from my wheel chair and then pivoting over to the toilet. It was pretty challenging at first, but it is pretty easy now. It seems a little silly that the staff has to supervise me since they just watch to make sure I am ok. I couldn't really take any steps on Friday on land or in the pool but today I was able to walk about 20 feet both within the parallel bars and with a walker.
Tomorrow my PT and OT will have a meeting with my rehab doctor to discuss my progress. They are going to recommend that I be allowed to be independent in my room for all of my activities in preparation for discharge on Friday. This week we are going to continue to work on arm and hand strength by working on my quilt block, leg strength and flexibility, core strength, fine motor skills and lots more. When I go home, I will have Rehab without Walls which will come to my house for a few months to do therapy and continue working on all of these things.
I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about the hospital so I can start writing about other things. I also plan on starting to write some of my like history in this blog. I have a booklet with life history prompts and I plan on using those prompts as my post title and then my entire post with center around that prompt. Maybe one of these days I can just make my blog into a book with some minor editing.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Progress Report
It's been a few days since I updated this because it's been just the same thing going on every day here. I've been going to PT and OT and getting a little bit stronger each day. Today we added pool therapy. Here is a break down of the things I couldn't do when I got out of the ICU but I can do now. Some of them are pretty small things, but are a big deal for me. They are big steps toward independence even though they seems like such small things. First of all, I can roll over by myself and position myself in almost any sleeping position. I still have a little bit of trouble if I need to position pillows under or between my legs but I can get into a comfortable position on my own.
2nd, I can sit on the edge of the bed without falling over. The last day that I was in ICU, the therapist had me try to sit on the edge of the bed and I could not hold myself up. I still have a little bit of weakness in my trunk that shows up at various times, such as when I am trying to stand, when I was in the pool, and when I am trying to bend over to pick something up from a sitting position and coming back up (like if I drop something)
3rd, I can transfer from my chair to the bed and vice versa independently. I started doing this independently only 48 hours prior to going to the ICU. It's the quickest way for me to get in and out of bed. This became possible only because my trunk became strong enough to hold myself upright. I used a slide board to do this transfer. The slide board created a bridge between the chair and the bed or whatever else I am transferring to and I slide across the bridge.
The biggest thing is I can stand a little bit. This allows me to do a stand pivot transfer to the toilet from my chair.. Using the transfer board on the toilet is really hard since it isn't an even surface and it is very slippery. Now I can stand perpendicular to the toilet, pull my underwear down and swing my hips over to the toilet. This gives me a huge amount of freedom when I am out in public. I won't have to carry my slide board with me when I go places or have to figure out how to maneuver in a handicap stall that is just a little bit too small.
Overall, my strength is coming back too. When the doctor does a neuro exam, they assign a number to each extremity for strength ranging from 0-5. A score of 5 is a normal, strong extremity with no deficits. It's been a long time since I have scored a 5 on a neuro exam. A score of 0 means the extremity being examined is paralyzed, no spasms, no muscle tone, completely flaccid. When my right leg is paralyzed from my MS flares, it never scores 0 because I always have spasticity and high muscle tone. It was usually 1 initially because I had muscle tone and spasticity but no voluntary movement. When I was in ICU last week with my full body paralysis, my neuro exam score was 0 on all 4 extremities. Today, I scored 4- in my arms, 2 in my L leg and my Rt leg is a 1+. These numbers are a huge improvement from my ICU time.
I have 1 more week in rehab and then I get to go home. It seems like I have been here forever. I am so ready to go home.
2nd, I can sit on the edge of the bed without falling over. The last day that I was in ICU, the therapist had me try to sit on the edge of the bed and I could not hold myself up. I still have a little bit of weakness in my trunk that shows up at various times, such as when I am trying to stand, when I was in the pool, and when I am trying to bend over to pick something up from a sitting position and coming back up (like if I drop something)
3rd, I can transfer from my chair to the bed and vice versa independently. I started doing this independently only 48 hours prior to going to the ICU. It's the quickest way for me to get in and out of bed. This became possible only because my trunk became strong enough to hold myself upright. I used a slide board to do this transfer. The slide board created a bridge between the chair and the bed or whatever else I am transferring to and I slide across the bridge.
The biggest thing is I can stand a little bit. This allows me to do a stand pivot transfer to the toilet from my chair.. Using the transfer board on the toilet is really hard since it isn't an even surface and it is very slippery. Now I can stand perpendicular to the toilet, pull my underwear down and swing my hips over to the toilet. This gives me a huge amount of freedom when I am out in public. I won't have to carry my slide board with me when I go places or have to figure out how to maneuver in a handicap stall that is just a little bit too small.
Overall, my strength is coming back too. When the doctor does a neuro exam, they assign a number to each extremity for strength ranging from 0-5. A score of 5 is a normal, strong extremity with no deficits. It's been a long time since I have scored a 5 on a neuro exam. A score of 0 means the extremity being examined is paralyzed, no spasms, no muscle tone, completely flaccid. When my right leg is paralyzed from my MS flares, it never scores 0 because I always have spasticity and high muscle tone. It was usually 1 initially because I had muscle tone and spasticity but no voluntary movement. When I was in ICU last week with my full body paralysis, my neuro exam score was 0 on all 4 extremities. Today, I scored 4- in my arms, 2 in my L leg and my Rt leg is a 1+. These numbers are a huge improvement from my ICU time.
I have 1 more week in rehab and then I get to go home. It seems like I have been here forever. I am so ready to go home.
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Progress Report
I'm not going to report on the things I did today because frankly, it's the same things every day as far as therapy goes. I will tell you about the great progress that I has become most apparent today. When Dr. Latorre came in to adjust my pump more today, he assessed movement, strength and spasticity/tone. Still no spasticity or tone, which is still so strange but I could more my right foot at the ankle rather than just the toes and my left one actually moved some at the ankle.
In the therapy gym. I stood quite a long time with support. I was able to take a few very small steps with assistance. I think if my foot didn't drag so much on the ground I might be able to take bigger steps.
In the pool, I walked about 20 feet although the PT had to scoot the rt foot along. I can do a lot more exercises in the pool and have more movement.
I also worked with the speech therapist today on strategies for when I forget words or when I replace words with wrong words. Many of them were things I am already doing. We also discussed memory strategies. I used to have a sharp memory. Now it's as dull as a ball. I do all the things she suggested there too. Use a calendar, use a check list, keep notes in a smart phone or notebook. Set alarms for things. These are all things I do on a daily basis so I don't forget appointments, things I have to do, projects I want to do, grocery items, medications, etc. I'm glad I'm an organized person or I could never keep it all straight.
Sleeping pill is kicking in again so I am off to the land of ZZZzzzzz.
In the therapy gym. I stood quite a long time with support. I was able to take a few very small steps with assistance. I think if my foot didn't drag so much on the ground I might be able to take bigger steps.
In the pool, I walked about 20 feet although the PT had to scoot the rt foot along. I can do a lot more exercises in the pool and have more movement.
I also worked with the speech therapist today on strategies for when I forget words or when I replace words with wrong words. Many of them were things I am already doing. We also discussed memory strategies. I used to have a sharp memory. Now it's as dull as a ball. I do all the things she suggested there too. Use a calendar, use a check list, keep notes in a smart phone or notebook. Set alarms for things. These are all things I do on a daily basis so I don't forget appointments, things I have to do, projects I want to do, grocery items, medications, etc. I'm glad I'm an organized person or I could never keep it all straight.
Sleeping pill is kicking in again so I am off to the land of ZZZzzzzz.
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