Therapy Notes – 8/26/21

Kind of a mixed bag day. It started off with my day nurse coming in and telling me that I had to use the bathroom commode and not the bedside one I’ve been using “because this is therapy.” Ah, no. But it was upsetting, especially since I had to pee and had waited til day shift because the night shift thinks I need to use a bedpan, which I despise. My OT said that the nurse didn’t understand my functional limits the way that I did, and not to worry. But of course I do.

And let me also say here that I’ve had more conversations about pooping and peeing than anytime in my life. All anyone wants me to do, other than stand up and walk on my own, is to poop every day. I know it’s important but I’m really sick of being asked every.single.shift. And peeing is such a complicated process – get help, transfer to commode, get help to be cleaned up, transfer back to bed or chair or wherever – that I tend to not want to do it. But we have to drink and that means having to pee and I hate talking about it.

In PT today we worked on standing up with the parallel bars. Not walking particularly, though I did that. But more getting confidence in the way my legs work, to stand upright and let go of one hand, then the other hand, and even both hands (but only for a few seconds). I need to be able to do one hand so I can dress myself and have a life. We also practiced transfers to a shower chair, which isn’t as scary as I thought, and transfers to a bathroom commode, which WAS super hard, even with grab bars. But obviously I need to be able to use a normal bathroom, so I have a goal of being able to do that. Finished PT with a short walk to the Nu-Step machine, my favorite from the gym, and spent 15 minutes happily doing a familiar workout that tired out the legs.

OT did more of the usual stuff – arm bike, pully weights in different configurations, and the rickshaw push down and pull down weights, plus the weighted ball for more arm/shoulder exercises. If I do say so myself, my upper body is a lot stronger even in this short a time.

I met a new patient in the common room at lunch after our therapy. Much to our surprise, we discovered that both of us are church secretaries, or at least I was until very recently. I like having people to talk to in person, and we can encourage each other as we heal.