Sunday I didn't have any therapy and it was terrific, a day to rest my body. On Monday I was ready to go. I did some more walking with the walker Monday and Tuesday, I'd been doing 100' at a time since Saturday. Today I kicked it up to 200'.
The doctors and therapists get together every Tuesday to discuss how patients are doing. Every week so far, United Healthcare has approved me for another week in the hospital or another week of therapy. When they discussed my progress this week, they thought that I may be able to go home as early as the end of next week but that would really require some pretty large steps for me to feel comfortable with that. They must have had the same thought because they kept my discharge date as 3/29, the day of my next chemo. The insurance contact here at RHI came in today and spoke with me, she had just gotten off the phone with UHC. They took a look at my progress and decided that they think I should be discharged next Wednesday. I guess this means that now my doctor is going to need to call each week and make a case for me to stay here if I'm not ready to go home on the 17th.
In OT this morning, they had me working on my hands by making me use a gigantic set of tweezers with a spring in them to pick up wooden blocks and move them from one box to another. Well I ended up pinching my hand and bleeding for an hour. Yet another motivation to get better so I can stop taking all of these pills, like the two blood thinners I'm on.
Eric
I forgot to mention, I got to try out some stairs today. I went up and down a set of 6 steps 3 times. This was a week before my therapist was planning on having me do them so again, positive things happening. I'm really starting to get excited about getting home, walking up the stairs and sleeping in my own bed.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
End of the Week
Sorry I haven't updated in the last couple days, they've been working me pretty hard and when I'm not doing that, I'm eating or sleeping.
Thursday and Friday, PT worked my legs and abs really hard while OT worked my neck, back and hands. All of the OT work is pretty similar, they bring out a bunch of different games and I have to put this peg to that hole and then put it back. It's more or less like going to Cracker Barrel with less appetizing food and I have to sit up straight the entire time.
Today I didn't realize I was going to have any therapy but sure enough, right after I had finished off half of the Jelly Belly's my mom had brought me, PT came in. The gym was pretty empty so she wanted me to walk all over the place. I knew that was going to be my only therapy for the day so I decided to push myself. I was fine for the first 20 minutes but then the stomach full of sugar caught up with me and I had a huge crash and lost all of my energy. If it was just me, I probably would have stopped right then and gone back to bed but after a little discipline by ridicule, she got me up again.
Thursday, I walked about 20'; Friday I tried to double it and went 50' (both of these were after 3 other therapy sessions so I was already pretty tired). Today I went about 500' and rode a bicycle-type machine for 10 minutes. I think I'll be regretting that if they expect me to do therapy tomorrow.
I can't remember if Melissa touched on this earlier so I'll say it again. I've lost about 2/3 of the hair on my scalp. What's still there is well on its way for needing a haircut so Mom bought a set of clippers and I'm going to buzz my head down a bit tomorrow and just let it all grow out at the same time.
Another sign of recovery: The nurses have been having trouble pulling blood since the chemo fried my veins and they haven't been vi sable. One nurse told me that it sometimes takes up to 10 years for the veins to recover after chemo. Well Thursday morning, the veins in my feet and hands popped out again and they have been able to easily hit veins in my arm since. This is good because I was getting REALLY tired of being poked multiple times at 5:30 each morning.
Eric
P.S. How about them Boilermakers! Share of the Big Ten, first since the mid 90's.
Thursday and Friday, PT worked my legs and abs really hard while OT worked my neck, back and hands. All of the OT work is pretty similar, they bring out a bunch of different games and I have to put this peg to that hole and then put it back. It's more or less like going to Cracker Barrel with less appetizing food and I have to sit up straight the entire time.
Today I didn't realize I was going to have any therapy but sure enough, right after I had finished off half of the Jelly Belly's my mom had brought me, PT came in. The gym was pretty empty so she wanted me to walk all over the place. I knew that was going to be my only therapy for the day so I decided to push myself. I was fine for the first 20 minutes but then the stomach full of sugar caught up with me and I had a huge crash and lost all of my energy. If it was just me, I probably would have stopped right then and gone back to bed but after a little discipline by ridicule, she got me up again.
Thursday, I walked about 20'; Friday I tried to double it and went 50' (both of these were after 3 other therapy sessions so I was already pretty tired). Today I went about 500' and rode a bicycle-type machine for 10 minutes. I think I'll be regretting that if they expect me to do therapy tomorrow.
I can't remember if Melissa touched on this earlier so I'll say it again. I've lost about 2/3 of the hair on my scalp. What's still there is well on its way for needing a haircut so Mom bought a set of clippers and I'm going to buzz my head down a bit tomorrow and just let it all grow out at the same time.
Another sign of recovery: The nurses have been having trouble pulling blood since the chemo fried my veins and they haven't been vi sable. One nurse told me that it sometimes takes up to 10 years for the veins to recover after chemo. Well Thursday morning, the veins in my feet and hands popped out again and they have been able to easily hit veins in my arm since. This is good because I was getting REALLY tired of being poked multiple times at 5:30 each morning.
Eric
P.S. How about them Boilermakers! Share of the Big Ten, first since the mid 90's.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
First Day of Rehab
I'm going to try to make this pretty quick so I can get some sleep.
Today was pretty much all assessments of strength. I had two sessions of physical therapy where they focused on my lower body and abdomen and two sessions of operational therapy which focused on upper body.
In the morning I had PT first. I did some leg exercises and then took about 30 steps using the parallel bars. It felt pretty good, I used my arms mainly for stability and was able to walk the entire distance without any help. Immediately after that I went into an OT session but wasn't able to do much, I was so exhausted that I got pretty light headed and spent most of the hour laying down, doing some arm exercises.
After OT, I got to take a 1.5hr nap before lunch. I'm back on a calorie count so they review how many calories I eat after I'm done with my plate, which I'm having no problem with considering the amount of exercise I'm getting. Right now I supposed to eat at least 2400 calories per day, which is pretty difficult on lean hospital food, but I wouldn't be surprised if they uped that number due to the activities they're having me do. I guess I should mention that the threat they are holding over my head is that if I don't average 2400 calories during the 3 day calorie count, they will cut a hole in my stomach and put a feed tube directly into it which doesn't sound pleasant.
After lunch, they came back and got me again for more OT. They took some measurements of how strong my grip was using my full hand as well as a few different combinations of fingers. In the end it looks like my grip is about 25% of a typical 25yr old.
Again I got to come back to the room and get some rest before my last half hour of PT. This was a half hour because we were actually working to build muscle. It was hard but it made me realize what I need to work on the most.
After dinner, I got to take my first shower since the second week of December. It was terrific, all the hot water I wanted! I stayed in there until my neck was so tired I couldn't keep my head up anymore.
We'll see how tomorrow goes but I think I'm going to bounce back pretty fast if I can make it through all four sessions each day.
Eric
P.S.: I almost forgot, they pulled my peripheral IV last night also so I'm now free of all lines and hoses.
Today was pretty much all assessments of strength. I had two sessions of physical therapy where they focused on my lower body and abdomen and two sessions of operational therapy which focused on upper body.
In the morning I had PT first. I did some leg exercises and then took about 30 steps using the parallel bars. It felt pretty good, I used my arms mainly for stability and was able to walk the entire distance without any help. Immediately after that I went into an OT session but wasn't able to do much, I was so exhausted that I got pretty light headed and spent most of the hour laying down, doing some arm exercises.
After OT, I got to take a 1.5hr nap before lunch. I'm back on a calorie count so they review how many calories I eat after I'm done with my plate, which I'm having no problem with considering the amount of exercise I'm getting. Right now I supposed to eat at least 2400 calories per day, which is pretty difficult on lean hospital food, but I wouldn't be surprised if they uped that number due to the activities they're having me do. I guess I should mention that the threat they are holding over my head is that if I don't average 2400 calories during the 3 day calorie count, they will cut a hole in my stomach and put a feed tube directly into it which doesn't sound pleasant.
After lunch, they came back and got me again for more OT. They took some measurements of how strong my grip was using my full hand as well as a few different combinations of fingers. In the end it looks like my grip is about 25% of a typical 25yr old.
Again I got to come back to the room and get some rest before my last half hour of PT. This was a half hour because we were actually working to build muscle. It was hard but it made me realize what I need to work on the most.
After dinner, I got to take my first shower since the second week of December. It was terrific, all the hot water I wanted! I stayed in there until my neck was so tired I couldn't keep my head up anymore.
We'll see how tomorrow goes but I think I'm going to bounce back pretty fast if I can make it through all four sessions each day.
Eric
P.S.: I almost forgot, they pulled my peripheral IV last night also so I'm now free of all lines and hoses.
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