Things to be proud of
Today was quite a day of rehab. Linda was busy basically from 8:00am to 2:00pm with meals or therapies. Tonight she said she was proud of several of her accomplishments. She has never said that about anything before.
This morning, her task in OT was to sort dominoes. Three sets of colored dominoes were placed on a table and mixed together. All she had to do was separate them into three colored piles. She did exactly the same task last Tuesday in 8 minutes and 23 seconds. This morning, her time was a blazing 5 minutes and 20 seconds. The OT said she had expected Linda to improve, probably by about a minute. I think that puts her actual time this morning well into the "impressive range."
In her afternoon OT session, Linda did a kneeling exercise. They have her kneel against a really large mat and then lift one leg up onto the foot. It looks something like the bended-knee wedding proposal posture. She has done it once before, and it is very hard. It generally requires 3 people to get her into that posture, and it stretches all kinds of muscle groups. Last time she did it, it was so difficult that when she came out of it her muscles completely spasmed. We didn't even try the other knee. Today she did it successfully on both sides, about 10 minutes on each side. No cramping.
The real triumphs of the day came in PT, however. She walked between the parallel bars again this morning. This afternoon, since her mother was here, the PT moved her 3:00 session to 1:30 so Marilyn could watch. Linda began with a demo run of the parallel bars, because that is a good show. Then she switched to her platform walker, which is more difficult. She was doing really well for about 30 feet, needing very little assistance. As a jest, I said, "I'll give you 5 dollars if you walk all the way back to our room." Since my money is her money it isn't much of an offer.
She did it. Linda walked with the platform walker and some assistance 178 feet from the gym to the door of our room. It was tough, her legs were shaking, and she was sweating. People were turning to watch and sort of quietly cheering. It was something to be proud of.
Since our therapies ended at 2:00 we went out. I needed to get some records from Boone for her appointment with the eye doctor tomorrow and she came along. She was still hot from working so hard, so I turned the vents of the car air conditioner on her (something she usually dislikes because it is too cold). We talked a bit, which should tell you how her speech is improving. The car is a hard talking environment because I can't look at her lips, and there is a lot of background noise. I said that she had been working pretty hard in that walker, and she replied in the sort of broken speech that she uses right now, "It; is; a good thing; I; am; wearing; deodorant!"
We visited with a few people at Boone that didn't see her when we went a few weeks ago then grabbed some coffee in the lobby and some Dairy Queen drive-through on the way back. Our preferred DQ treat is the mocha chip blizzard. We parked ourselves in the meal room a bit early and had ice cream and coffee before dinner.
During dinner, one of the other PTs came into the meal room for something in the cabinets. Bonnie said about Linda's walking, "She must have thought she was headed for the door." Linda said, "More; like; the; bathroom!"
Linda is resting at the moment. We might do something passive tonight like watch a movie, or maybe it'll just be early bed. She said reading Harry Potter would be too much work today (because she still has to turn pages and that means moving).
Today was quite a day of rehab. Linda was busy basically from 8:00am to 2:00pm with meals or therapies. Tonight she said she was proud of several of her accomplishments. She has never said that about anything before.
This morning, her task in OT was to sort dominoes. Three sets of colored dominoes were placed on a table and mixed together. All she had to do was separate them into three colored piles. She did exactly the same task last Tuesday in 8 minutes and 23 seconds. This morning, her time was a blazing 5 minutes and 20 seconds. The OT said she had expected Linda to improve, probably by about a minute. I think that puts her actual time this morning well into the "impressive range."
In her afternoon OT session, Linda did a kneeling exercise. They have her kneel against a really large mat and then lift one leg up onto the foot. It looks something like the bended-knee wedding proposal posture. She has done it once before, and it is very hard. It generally requires 3 people to get her into that posture, and it stretches all kinds of muscle groups. Last time she did it, it was so difficult that when she came out of it her muscles completely spasmed. We didn't even try the other knee. Today she did it successfully on both sides, about 10 minutes on each side. No cramping.
The real triumphs of the day came in PT, however. She walked between the parallel bars again this morning. This afternoon, since her mother was here, the PT moved her 3:00 session to 1:30 so Marilyn could watch. Linda began with a demo run of the parallel bars, because that is a good show. Then she switched to her platform walker, which is more difficult. She was doing really well for about 30 feet, needing very little assistance. As a jest, I said, "I'll give you 5 dollars if you walk all the way back to our room." Since my money is her money it isn't much of an offer.
She did it. Linda walked with the platform walker and some assistance 178 feet from the gym to the door of our room. It was tough, her legs were shaking, and she was sweating. People were turning to watch and sort of quietly cheering. It was something to be proud of.
Since our therapies ended at 2:00 we went out. I needed to get some records from Boone for her appointment with the eye doctor tomorrow and she came along. She was still hot from working so hard, so I turned the vents of the car air conditioner on her (something she usually dislikes because it is too cold). We talked a bit, which should tell you how her speech is improving. The car is a hard talking environment because I can't look at her lips, and there is a lot of background noise. I said that she had been working pretty hard in that walker, and she replied in the sort of broken speech that she uses right now, "It; is; a good thing; I; am; wearing; deodorant!"
We visited with a few people at Boone that didn't see her when we went a few weeks ago then grabbed some coffee in the lobby and some Dairy Queen drive-through on the way back. Our preferred DQ treat is the mocha chip blizzard. We parked ourselves in the meal room a bit early and had ice cream and coffee before dinner.
During dinner, one of the other PTs came into the meal room for something in the cabinets. Bonnie said about Linda's walking, "She must have thought she was headed for the door." Linda said, "More; like; the; bathroom!"
Linda is resting at the moment. We might do something passive tonight like watch a movie, or maybe it'll just be early bed. She said reading Harry Potter would be too much work today (because she still has to turn pages and that means moving).
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