PAGES

Friday, January 24, 2014

HEALTH, THERAPY, FRIENDS, MAILBOXES and COMMODE BUCKETS

HEALTH ISSUES

I currently have some other health issues going on and today it seems the phone won't stop ringing with phone calls from doctors (and a few telemarketers too. I don't understand why the keep trying to call us, we never answer their calls... you'd think they'd give up; stop wasting their time with dead-end numbers.)

THERAPY

Aside from the other issues, I've been busy with PT (Physical Therapy), for my standing balance and walking, and OT (Occupational Therapy), for therapy on my arm, twice a week this month (January). My 1st session with OT was rough (painful) but in the long run, worth it. My shoulder had started to freeze up and was stuck in the bent position across my torso and it hurt quite a bit for anyone to move or manipulate it in any way. Now, after only two OT sessions, using my good arm I am able to lift it to table height in order to do stretching exercises. I'm now feeling very hopeful  that things will change and my arm will improve enough to use it again. My therapy currently includes Neuro Muscular Stimulation (sometimes referred to as E- stim or electronic stimulation), McConnell Taping ( a method of taping the shoulder to support it because of my subluxation) and passive exercises (meaning, I use my other arm to move my affected arm through a series of stretches). We've also ordered a GivMohr Sling which I heard about from someone on the Stroke Network forums and my OT asked around about (it looks promising on a number of levels.. I'm looking forward to trying it out).

THANK GOODNESS FOR FRIENDS!

I have to give a loud shout out of Thank you for my friends, Liz and Peter W. for all their help, patience and generosity with providing me with transportation to and from my therapy appointments. This takes a huge chunk out of their time each week; I hope one day I'll be able to thank them in a BIG way.

WHAT DO A MAILBOX AND COMMODE BUCKET HAVE IN COMMON?

And now a topic not related to my stroke or my health in any way. It turns out that this is the season of the mailbox. We keep losing it! During our fist snowstorm of the season, we awoke to find our mailbox atop the snowbank at the edge of our front lawn. Apparently the City's snowplow knocked it off it's post. It took 2 phone calls and 2 weeks but eventually, the City DPW finally came and reattached it to it's post.... Just in time for our next big storm... this time the plow knocked the door off the mailbox itself. The City informed me that they'd provide us with a new mailbox (this was the first week in January)... fast forward a few more weeks, our weather got unusually mild for a bit, enough to melt a lot of the snow on the ground and to reveal qite a lot of old, and now damaged, mail that must have been buried in the snowbanks during the first storm (we found a couple of past due bills, a refund check and holiday greeting cards - the photos were ruined).

Then, guess what happened... another snow storm and another knocked down mailbox! The City came yesterday and installed our new mailbox stating that they'd be back in the spring with a new post. Which I'm sure we'll need by then. Now guess what ... we're suppose to get another storm this weekend. I wonder if our shiny new box will survive.

 Both times we lost our mailbox, we hung a commode bucket from the post to provide a container for receiving our mail. If there are any health care professionals in our neighborhood that may have recognized the bucket for what it truly was, they must have had a good chuckle.

No comments:

Post a Comment