Hangin' In There

Today was exhausting.  It started at 10:00 AM with a group of Elon students who wanted to film my first PT session in exchange for fifty bucks.  I figured that sort of attention would be a good motivator, and why wouldn't I want fifty bucks?  So Courtney made me do some transfers, and then made me lay down on the bed and sit back up a couple times.  I've made some big improvements, and she showed me a new trick to help with that, but it's still exhausting, and I had worked up a nice sweat by the time it was over.  I did, however, get a couple good laughs on camera, so I felt good about myself.

Next, I got to talk to a psychologist for an hour.  That was entertaining if relatively uneventful.  We talked about my reaction in that group meeting last week.  I think she thinks my attitude is healthy, but with psychologists, who knows what they're actually thinking.

Lunch was late as usual, and consisted of a baked potato and some seasoned carrots.  I don't necessarily need meat in a given meal, but that combination seemed like it was missing something.  Fortunately, Susy showed up for lunch with some cake from Nantucket Grill.  LOTS of cake.  DELICIOUS cake.  That made up for any other deficiencies lunch may have had.

Let them eat cake!

After lunch, Emily made me do exercises on my upper back muscles.  That was extremely difficult because I haven't used those muscles at all since the accident.  It is also difficult because I find it impossible to balance myself in a seated position while pulling my shoulders back.  I just can't do it.  Maybe one day, but not today.  That was exhausting and once again, I worked up a sweat.

Next, it was off to the Spinal Cord Injury Exercise Group.  As you might imagine, this is a bunch of guys in wheel chairs doing exercises with dumbbells or waving around large exercise balls.  This might not have been so bad except that I had to do it in the unstable chair I wrote about yesterday.  So any lifting had to be accompanied by a lot of frantically trying to hold myself in the chair.  I was ruined by the end of this session, but I still had another session to go.

Finally, Rahalay and Katie from Occupational Therapy took me into the bathroom and had me try a transfer to a shower chair that was much lower than my wheelchair.  That meant that the angle of the transfer board was really steep, and the transfer was really steep and difficult.  And scary.  I burned a lot of energy just worrying about falling off that board.

So I didn't finish all my therapy until 4:00PM.  That's later than usual, and there wasn't much time before dinner.  Once I got through dinner, and the nursing project that follows it, I had visitors at 7:00.

Titus and Brittany came to eat some food and play some Rummikub.  It's a fun game, and I had a great time with my neighbors as always, but now I'm tired and sore, and still up writing about it.

Eating at the cafeteria

Rummikub in the dining room

In addition to all the therapy, I had Andrew pushing me to work harder all day and do all my extra exercises.  Today was the first day that has been really just miserable from a physical standpoint.  I hurt all day, and I know I'm going to be sore all day tomorrow.  I guess this is what they're talking about when they say rehab is hard.  If there's more of this ahead, I'm ready.  I just hope the days aren't all like this.