Phase Three: Running Forward and Looking Back

Today I go home.  After two weeks in acute care and a month of rehab, I am now able to transport myself short distances with a walker and climb stairs with the help of a railing or an arm.  I can bathe myself with minimal assistance and get myself on and off the toilet on my own.  My speech is intelligible and the smile, though crooked, is definitely a smile.  I never dreamed I would be here so soon.

The big mile markers are going to be few and far between from here on out, and progress will be more incremental and measured in increased endurance and strength as I gradually develop the stamina to return to normal.  There won't be many exciting breakthroughs to report on a daily basis, but there will be time to sit on the porch and do some mulling over of this time spent between my two worlds.

A lot of this will be backtracking to things I experienced before I was strong enough to write or had enough time to process, and it will be as much for me as anyone else.  I bend my knees now without thinking, and walking will soon be the same, so there's an urgency to get these past weeks down in writing before forgetfulness sets in and the wonder fades away.

But no more sitting in front of the computer today.  It's time to celebrate!

Home

Progress has continued to exceed expectations, and after yesterday's conference between my therapists, nurses and doctors, I was told that I would probably be free to leave by this Friday.  I had anticipated that they would cut down the remaining time from the three to five weeks they'd told me after the previous conference, but I was pretty stunned that I could potentially be out in just a matter of days.

And then I started to panic a little.  Not because I didn't think I'd be ready physically -- that would come -- but because I was afraid I wasn't going to have enough time to say goodbye to all the nurses, learn more anatomy, explore more of the hospital, better document the equipment used, order gifts for my therapists, and come to terms with leaving my high-tech hospital bed.  In short, this had become my little world and I wasn't sure I was ready to leave it.

We had requested that my physical therapist and occupational therapist come to the house before discharge to go over strategies for getting into the house, showering, using the stairs, etc.  Jacki and Amy scheduled it right away for this morning, so we all headed downstairs at 8:30, and after a month and a half, I took my first breath outside the hospital compound.

The visit was a little overwhelming.  I hadn't been home since January, and now had to climb a full flight of stairs and maneuver my walker around corners and over thresholds with two therapists in tow.  I never dreamed simply living at home could require so much more energy than therapy, but I was exhausted by the end of our short visit.

Even so, as we drove back to the hospital I realized I didn't need to bump back my return date.  Therapy had served its function, and I had learned a lot and met some great people in the process.  But this was not my world.  The hospital was merely a short step towards healing, not a stopping point, and now it was time to get back to business.

Fall Risk

During my initial PT evaluation in rehab, my therapist noticed a yellow bracelet from Acute Care on my arm with the words "FALL RISK" and gave it a disapproving look.  "You're not a fall risk," she said.  "Those are for people who forget they can't walk and try to get out of bed on their own.  You're weak, but you're conscious enough to know that and not get yourself into trouble."

That, plus the fact that I couldn't have rolled myself out of bed if I'd wanted to and didn't anticipate that I would suddenly forget my physical limitations, did make the bracelet seem a little unnecessary, but I left it on anyway, if only because it made people laugh who knew my preexisting condition of poor coordination and tendencies to trip and run into things.

Over the past few days, though, I've started to see myself becoming a legitimate fall risk under Jacki's definition.  One afternoon, frustrated while trying to back up in the wheelchair, I caught myself preparing to stand up and walk behind the wheelchair to move a cord out of the way. On another occasion I had to stop myself when I realized I was halfway off the toilet and plotting the best route around the walker and wheelchair to the sink, having forgotten in both cases that the very reason I was in the wheelchair or surrounded by strange equipment in the bathroom is that I cannot stand and walk on my own.

Riskiness aside, it feels good to sense my limbs remembering the effortlessness, the nonchalance of instinctual actions like standing up to move something out of the way or maneuver between obstacles, which in the past month had become foreign and unnatural.  And it is astonishing to think that soon I will be free to carry out these complex motions on my own without a second thought.