September 11, 2006
For the first time I didn’t accompany Gary in therapy, not that I didn’t feel ambivalent about that – but I survived ;-). I drove him there (after making a stop at Paneera’s to get his lunch and by the way they don’t start serving soup until 11), helped him transfer into his chair, then he puckered up his lips for a kiss goodbye. “You want me to go any farther with you?” I asked. “No. But watch from here and make sure I get in the door,” he said with a smile. I told him that even though I knew he didn’t always make it inside the door himself, I was certain someone would help him – whether he wanted the help or not. I then got two surprises – he made it in the door the easiest ever, and no one leapt to his aid (those two facts are probably related).
In the evening he told me that the session had started out with the usual weight-training exercises, and he had again gone up in weight on one of the exercises. The therapist also retested his functional strength, repeating the tests she'd done the first day we went there (she would tell him to resist her as she pushed down on various arm parts), and she pronounced he’d made a great improvement (this doesn’t seem to be a very objective test, however!). They also went outside because she thought another of the curbs was low enough and he could try to practice curbs, but it turned out not to be low enough; he thought he spotted a lower one, so he wheeled over to it, but it wasn’t any lower. So they went inside and he practiced wheelies for a while. He held one for one and three-quarters minutes. The therapists were all impressed, but Gary told me he was sure his Shepherd therapist wouldn’t have been (grin).
The therapist asked him what was new, and he told her he was working on his goal to get more independent at taking a shower. He told her the real sticking point – literally – is his transfers back from shower chair to wheelchair using the transfer board. His skin sticks to the board and he takes it with him. I have suggested he powder himself, though then I’d have to make sure to get the powder washed from his flap afterwards, and this past Sunday I suggested that next time he use the longer transfer board – my idea being that that way he could keep his hands on the board when he transfers, and since he’d be pressing down on it, it would be less likely to stick to his bootie.
On a different task, the therapist also suggested he see if his shoulders are more flexible now so that maybe when he is trying to get his pants on he can reach his hand way around to the back of his pants while he is lying in bed to try to get the pants over his butt while protecting his flap with his hand. (He hasn’t tried to get them all the way up for a long time because he didn’t have that flexibility and the pants were shearing his flap when he tried to tug them up over his butt.)
Evidently this was review day (maybe because he’s been going four weeks now), because she also asked him how he was doing on cooking and laundry. He told her he makes his own breakfast and lunch (though neither of those are cooked), that he can make a taco dinner except for turning on the stove for the frying pan (though now that he’s got a new reacher, maybe he can do that, he told me), and that he helps with the preparation of close to half of the dinner meals (we need to get those seminars moved to an earlier time ;-)). He also is able to bring the dinnerware from the table to the sink and wash them off (though he can't maneuver his chair to get at the dishwasher). As far as laundry goes, he can do everything except put the clothes from the washer to the dryer – well, with his reacher he could probably do that too but it would take him a million years (well, close to it ;-)).
I called him in the afternoon to make sure he’d gotten to the university all right, and then I called again about 5:30 – I’d thought he’d said he was going to be home at five, and I got worried. He told me he’d said 5:30 because he was attending a seminar until five, but that he would in fact be late – the bus had just come. He said the Kuperbergs, however, had been keeping him company. In fact, Krystyna had chased after and flagged down the bus because the driver was new and didn’t know where to go to pick Gary up!
Meanwhile, I spent much of the day revising my story, and I also spent a little time getting some books together for a Friends of the Library book sale that Janet Rogers told me Donna Bennett had told her about. Janet is trying to light a fire under me ;-) to get the upstairs organized (and continue doing so with the downstairs). I confess I didn’t spend nearly as much time on it this past week as I did the previous week. I’d much rather work on my story :-). But I don’t think Janet is going to let up until I get my rear in gear . . . :-) She came over and hauled away a couple bags of clothes for Goodwill, and a couple boxes of books. Thanks, Janet!
For the first time I didn’t accompany Gary in therapy, not that I didn’t feel ambivalent about that – but I survived ;-). I drove him there (after making a stop at Paneera’s to get his lunch and by the way they don’t start serving soup until 11), helped him transfer into his chair, then he puckered up his lips for a kiss goodbye. “You want me to go any farther with you?” I asked. “No. But watch from here and make sure I get in the door,” he said with a smile. I told him that even though I knew he didn’t always make it inside the door himself, I was certain someone would help him – whether he wanted the help or not. I then got two surprises – he made it in the door the easiest ever, and no one leapt to his aid (those two facts are probably related).
In the evening he told me that the session had started out with the usual weight-training exercises, and he had again gone up in weight on one of the exercises. The therapist also retested his functional strength, repeating the tests she'd done the first day we went there (she would tell him to resist her as she pushed down on various arm parts), and she pronounced he’d made a great improvement (this doesn’t seem to be a very objective test, however!). They also went outside because she thought another of the curbs was low enough and he could try to practice curbs, but it turned out not to be low enough; he thought he spotted a lower one, so he wheeled over to it, but it wasn’t any lower. So they went inside and he practiced wheelies for a while. He held one for one and three-quarters minutes. The therapists were all impressed, but Gary told me he was sure his Shepherd therapist wouldn’t have been (grin).
The therapist asked him what was new, and he told her he was working on his goal to get more independent at taking a shower. He told her the real sticking point – literally – is his transfers back from shower chair to wheelchair using the transfer board. His skin sticks to the board and he takes it with him. I have suggested he powder himself, though then I’d have to make sure to get the powder washed from his flap afterwards, and this past Sunday I suggested that next time he use the longer transfer board – my idea being that that way he could keep his hands on the board when he transfers, and since he’d be pressing down on it, it would be less likely to stick to his bootie.
On a different task, the therapist also suggested he see if his shoulders are more flexible now so that maybe when he is trying to get his pants on he can reach his hand way around to the back of his pants while he is lying in bed to try to get the pants over his butt while protecting his flap with his hand. (He hasn’t tried to get them all the way up for a long time because he didn’t have that flexibility and the pants were shearing his flap when he tried to tug them up over his butt.)
Evidently this was review day (maybe because he’s been going four weeks now), because she also asked him how he was doing on cooking and laundry. He told her he makes his own breakfast and lunch (though neither of those are cooked), that he can make a taco dinner except for turning on the stove for the frying pan (though now that he’s got a new reacher, maybe he can do that, he told me), and that he helps with the preparation of close to half of the dinner meals (we need to get those seminars moved to an earlier time ;-)). He also is able to bring the dinnerware from the table to the sink and wash them off (though he can't maneuver his chair to get at the dishwasher). As far as laundry goes, he can do everything except put the clothes from the washer to the dryer – well, with his reacher he could probably do that too but it would take him a million years (well, close to it ;-)).
I called him in the afternoon to make sure he’d gotten to the university all right, and then I called again about 5:30 – I’d thought he’d said he was going to be home at five, and I got worried. He told me he’d said 5:30 because he was attending a seminar until five, but that he would in fact be late – the bus had just come. He said the Kuperbergs, however, had been keeping him company. In fact, Krystyna had chased after and flagged down the bus because the driver was new and didn’t know where to go to pick Gary up!
Meanwhile, I spent much of the day revising my story, and I also spent a little time getting some books together for a Friends of the Library book sale that Janet Rogers told me Donna Bennett had told her about. Janet is trying to light a fire under me ;-) to get the upstairs organized (and continue doing so with the downstairs). I confess I didn’t spend nearly as much time on it this past week as I did the previous week. I’d much rather work on my story :-). But I don’t think Janet is going to let up until I get my rear in gear . . . :-) She came over and hauled away a couple bags of clothes for Goodwill, and a couple boxes of books. Thanks, Janet!
posted by Peg Daniels at 8:16 PM
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