Therapy, Therapy, Therapy

May 9, 2016

Den is on his own again today. We talked on and off when he had time in his schedule, but he had nothing exciting to report. He did tell me that he is eating well. He also talked with the floor counselor today and was assured that he is doing well and the staff/therapists are all happy with the progress that he is making.

May 10, 2016

I dropped Em off at school this morning. The principal is allowing me to park my car at the school on the days that I am taking the train downtown to see Den. The teachers and staff at Em’s school have all been wonderful. They are all continuing to pray for Den and the family while he is away from home.

Den has 5 sessions today:

• 8AM – Speech
• 10AM – Group PT
• 11AM – Patient Activity (I’ll tell you about that in a minute)
• 1PM – Individual PT
• 2PM – Occupational Therapy

When the doctor’s came around this morning, they let us know that Den had a tentative discharge date of June 1st. This was the goal for getting Den “up and about” so he could go home.

The 11AM Patient Activity was a mystery to us. All we knew was that the appointment said it would take place in Den’s room. We were very surprised when an older gentleman came in and introduced himself as Bob. He looked like any person you would meet on the street. I remember thinking, “Why is this man here?” Well, low and behold, he is an LVAD patient also, tho you wouldn’t know it to look at him. He told us that he got his LVAD 5 years ago. He showed us how he “hid” his batteries and controller so well. It was a wonderful visit and Den asked if he would come back again before he was discharged. Bob told him that he would stop by any time that he was at RIC to see how Den was doing.

Just before I had to leave, Den’s social worker, Ed stopped by. He told us the goals that needed to be reached for Den to be discharged including the LVAD training from the team at U of C. I said good bye to Den and headed back home on the Metra. I arrived just in time to get Em as school was letting out.

May 11, 2016

Den is on his own again today. Most of his appointments are after lunch, so he decided to take it easy this morning. I talked to him after dinner and he said that the therapists were working him hard to get him back in shape and improve his strength and flexibility. He told me that one of his session had him getting in and out of bed with little or no assistance. He was very proud to tell me that he could do his batteries and get out of bed with no help now, but the staff wanted him to get help if he needed to get up. He was still somewhat unstable on his feet. He said he was very tired, but felt that therapy was going well.