Day 1 of Rehab

Check out Randy walking!

Day 1 was pretty tough, but Rand did amazing. He kept pushing himself. During the session pictured here, the therapist asked Randy if he wanted to stop and take a break and he said no. After all of the sessions when I got him back into bed and he was compltely exhausted, he kept working on his left arm. He kept trying to flex it out and move it around. He is absolutely determined to get that arm working.

So how the rehab works is that they provide Randy with a schedule at the beginning of the day that includes three hours of therapy, but the three hours are broken up into half hour sessions. They will usually include Physical Therapy, Occupational therapy and Speech therapy. Today, though, they couldn't schedule the speech therapy because they couldn't get him into their schedule for today so they started that therapy tomorrow. Randy gets some breaks in between the sessions, at least he did today. The longest break he got was an hour. During the last break, he and I both fell asleep. Thankfully the doctor came in to introduce himself ~ he woke us up in time to get ready to go to the last session.

Here is what he did throughout the day:

First up was Occupational therapy with washing himself and getting dressed. He did pretty well with it. The therapist was very impressed with how well Randy was able to follow her commands. One thing he did, though, was continuing to go back to washing his face. When she would ask him to wash something else, such as his legs or arms, he would wash his face and then go to the area she had instructed. He did that with each command. I thought that was interesting.

Second half hour was physical therapy. This first session was just an evaluation time. She evaluated his movement and the strenght in both his left and right side. She had him practice walking on the balance pole things (where you have a pole on each side to hold onto), but she had to be his left side because he couldn't hold onto it. She said that physical therapy will concentrate on improving Randy's balance, coordination (because he really had very little coordination) and strengthening his left side.

Third half hour was occupational therapy. She used a machine thingy to test Randy's strenght in both arms. His left is quite a bit weaker than his right, of course. She also tested the mobility of his arms and then worked with money. He did well with naming the coins or, if he couldn't remember the name, he would state their value. He did quite well with adding up a handful of coins. He struggled a little, though, with giving change back. You could tell his mind was really working to try to process what was needed, but it was a definite struggle.

Fourth half hour was physical therapy again. This is where they really worked on Randy's walking. She tried a walker, but with his left side not being able to hold it, it didn't work too well. She then tried a quad base cane and he was doing quite well with that. He is having issues with balance, but he was really working on it. He ended up walking 300 feet, which is amazing since he didn't get much therapy at all at Harborview. Towards the end of the walk, his steps were evening out a bit ~ they seemed a little more coordinated.

Fifth half hour was another occupational therapy session. His therapist worked on practing getting in and out of the tub and on and off the toilet. He did such an amazing job. She also worked on bearing weight on the left hand. There was some pain with that and he had a rough time doing it. She had to keep getting on to him about using his right side. In such a short time, he has really learned how to compensate for his left side by using his right side for so much. He has always been great at problem solving and it has really shown in the last few days!

The final session was another physical therapy. This therapist also worked on walking ~ he did another 300 feet. Through this walk, though, he really wasn't using the cane, but he did have to lean on her a bit to compensate for his left side. But through this walk, I saw a great improvement in his balance. He actually did so well with getting up and transfering from wheelchair to bed or toilet so well that I was able to assist him with going to the bathroom by myself a couple of times today. it makes it nice not having to wait for the nurse, who has 4 other paitents she is helping as well. It was great!

One issue we did have today was with his diet. In the orders Harborview sent over, they didn't include the update of him being able to eat whatever he wanted so they were only giving him these thick, disgusting juices and stuff. I told the nurse and the doctor that they had told us they were changing it and we have been giving him tons of thin liquids and he does absolutely fine. They were very quick to get the speech therapist in and she evaluated him today on his swallow and was very convinced that he was good to go on eating whatever he wanted. So that is all fixed now.

So far, I have to say, I am really liking our experience at Good Sam!

One kind of funny thing that Randy said that I have to share: He has been drinking tons of liquids today. After every session I would make sure to give him something to drink. I commented on how much he was drinking and he said "I need to prove I don't need a catheter anymore". He is so determined that that thing is not going back in!

He is just doing absolutely amazing. I tell him constantly throughout the day how much I appreciate his hard work and I tell him how great he is doing. He is really working hard!

Tomorrow he gets a little break ~ only a couple of therapy sessions in the morning and none in the afternoon. Then Sunday he gets the entire day off. Monday morning, though, we get to start the intense days again. I am really looking forward to seeing how much he will improve over the next couple of days with how hard he is working!