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.
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