It's hard to believe it has been over 4 months since we arrived back home from the Shepherd Center and I haven't been very good at letting everyone know how things are going. Time has flown by but we are still adjusting because things keep changing and we're never quite totally on top of them. We've tried to get back to the normalcy of life as you've seen in our previous blogs while living the reality of our new "normal". Life is constant change and we're just trying to flow with it.
The first thing we had to do after returning was set up appointments with a multitude of doctors--I'm still working on that--and therapists. We needed a visit to Bill's internist so he was up to date on everything and then had to find a urologist who was knowlegeable about spinal cord injury patients. I hate eeny meeny miny mo but sometimes you luck out. I'm still searching for a "physiatrist" and if you don't know what that is I didn't either. It's a physician who is trained in physical medicine and rehabilitation and Nashville doesn't have many and those that are here don't deal with spinal cord patients! We have seen one physiatrist but we're still a little leary about what he understands about Bill's condition. It's amazing how little most doctors know about spinal cord injury.
One thing we are very pleased about though is the therapy program we found. Since Shepherd Center opened a Beyond Therapy Center here in Franklin last Fall, we visited it to see if we could go there. Unfortunately it's only physical therapy at this time and as of our visit they still were not Medicare certified. However they recommended Life Therapies and they have turned out to be fantastic. Bill gets Physical, Occupational and Speech therapy there and they have been wonderful. He goes twice a week for three hours. During that time I can run errands and get things done that I probably wouldn't do otherwise. In addition to therapy, Bill also goes to an accupuncturist. For the first month we were back he went twice a week but after that we scaled back to once a week. I can't say whether it's helping or not but we figure it's worth trying. We can definitely see though that the therapy is helpful.
So we have a fairly busy schedule what with doctor's appointments, therapy and accupuncture. And of course, it takes longer to do everything so we spread it out as much as we can. The week starts on Monday morning with accupuncture. Since we have to go to downtown Nashville, about 14 miles, we have to leave an hour beforehand to allow for travel time as well as transferring into and out of the car. We get back home about 1:00 so half our day is gone. Then on Tuesday and Thursday he has Therapy from either 12:00 to 3:00 or 1:00 to 4:00. We seldom get home before 4:30 or 5:00 those days. Therapy is closer, only about 6 miles, but they think nothing of running over the scheduled time, which is good for Bill as far as what he gets. So those two days are pretty full. That leaves us with Wednesday and Friday as free time to (schedule other appointments!!) do other things. Since Tami is off on Fridays, we often spend time with her and Connor or drive down to see Kendra in Alabama. Bill just started back singing with the church choir. They have been asking for him to come back since we returned. Practice one night a week is no problem but making it for practice at 8:00 am prior to service on Sunday is probably not going to happen since we do good to make it to 9:30 service on time.
Bill has improved a lot since we arrived home. He has more use of his fingers so he can eat and take care of his teeth himself. He has also finally been able to transfer from the bed to his chair which is much easier on me. We had been using a portable lift which is not bad but the transfer is less involved. It's still necessary to use the lift to go the other way, chair to bed, because that is uphill and we just haven't been able to work that out yet, but each step gained is a blessing. We also use the portable lift for transferring into and out of the car. We always pray for clear weather, since it takes a few minutes to get him in or out, and so far we've been pretty lucky. If it's really bad we just have to cancel our plans.
We have had our share of mishaps--forgetting to hook up the wheelchair seat belt or car seat belt or not replacing the wheelchair's tip bars after removing them to go up or down stairs. That results in forward or backward spills which so far have only been distressing and not damaging. Bill has to weight shift every 30 minutes which takes the pressure off his spine preventing pressure sores caused by staying in one position all the time. So if you lean forward to weight shift and there's nothing holding you in the chair -- well, you get the picture. Fortunately he hasn't been hurt bad. They warned us at Shepherd that those things happen but it is frightening when it does. It's also a panic moment when you're driving down the road and Bill suddenly says, "you know you didn't hook my seat belt!"
As I said earlier there is continual improvement, but it is slow. About 2 weeks ago while we were getting ready for church, Bill showed me he could move his left foot. I didn't really believe it, but sure enough he was able to move his foot. He still has no sensation in his legs but we're hopeful. After all, just to be able to move his foot is an accomplishment.
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