For the past three days, we've been working on leg exercises and standing practice. Whew! I am beat and only can imagine that Bob is beat, too. This regimen of ours takes all afternoon because Bob is slow and, of course, bathroom breaks... So, pretty much all other therapies flew out the window with the exception of mirror therapy (I have him do this while I give him a tube feeding, which takes about 15 minutes, a sort of multi-tasking here) and a pudding cup for swallow practice while I eat my supper.
Standing is a terrible ordeal. The problem here is that Bob is so weak he cannot get up out of the wheelchair to his feet, so he has to be pulled up. At Rehab, it takes two people to do this or one big strong guy. And me? I'm 5'4" and he's 6'3" and weighs about 185 lbs. and even with a gait belt (which has to be worn under his armpits because of the peg tube), I am stretched to the max trying to pull him upwards (over my head!). We manage to accomplish this using a straight legged walker braced against the footboard of his hospital bed, the wheelchair pushed snug against this and then it's 1,2,3 and Bob pushes and I pull until he's on his feet. Once he's up, he pretty much can hold himself up without help, but even then I can tell he's leaning too far to the left, not putting weight on his right leg like he should. Sort of standing one-legged while I stand next to him, holding onto his gait belt in case he falls, and reminding him to put weight on that right leg and clocking him with my watch. Our record this weekend is 3 minutes and 20 seconds.
But I can tell you, my legs and arms are sore and stiff this morning. My back's not doing so great either.
And of course I will not say a word about our difficulties to the therapists. I have learned that anything you say "can and will be held against you". And Bob doesn't need any more strikes on his progress report. It's a sad thing when the people who are supposed to be there to help seem like the enemy....
Bob has two more scheduled weeks of PT before another dreaded evaluation. But today I am tired and worn out from all that standing and really thinking a day of Scrabble therapy sounds pretty darn good....
2 comments:
Congratulations on Bob standing 3 minutes and 20 seconds. Until about a month ago, any time I stood that long I was sure to be standing one-legged. Now I can stand one-legged on my affected left leg to give my right leg a break. Next week, Bob will be standing even longer! Are you keeping a log of this? Maybe looking at a graph on the wall would make both of you encouraged and proud. It's not easy!
That's really good- I hope he keeps making progress!
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