Walttriznastories's Blog

UPDATE REHAB

April 11, 2013 at 5:30 pm 2 comments

My consistent readers, 4/11/13

I’m home now and have been since last Saturday. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts while getting to the point that I could come home.

Once I left the hospital after my bout with a ruptured spleen, I was not able to go home so I entered a rehab facility. I would like to share some of my thoughts while experiencing this period of my recovery.

I was now a resident, temporarily, of Devon Manor, after falling and suffering six cracked ribs along with a lacerated spleen. The spleen was a big problem for I was on blood thinners when it began bleeding. I went to the rehab center after a ten-day hospital stay and was weak as a baby. I needed a walker to walk and breathing exercises to rebuild my lung capacity.

Once I made fun of walkers calling them ‘jungle jims’. Now that I was using one to get around during my recovery they were no longer a source of ridicule.

I went through a strange period when I first started rehab. We did our exercises in a large room with about four or five patients at a time each working with a physical therapist. As I looked around at my fellow patients I realized that, except for those with brain injuries, I was the youngest at 65. Later I would visit another gym where those in rehab were around my age or younger.

What started me thinking this way I do not know. But as I looked around at the patients working along side me, some extremely elderly and barely able to move, unable to do the simplest tasks, I wondered why rehab them at all? What were they going to rehab to?
But after much thought my heart softened and my mind opened. They were rehabbing back to the life they left no matter how limited that life may be. They were rehabbing back to their families, their children and grandchildren.

I’ve mellowed during my rehab experience. Perhaps it’s having your routine, your normal life; take away from you and trying desperately to get back to where you were. I now know it doesn’t matter how old you are or what that life was like – you want to return.

The care, the concern of the therapists at Devon Manor was highly professional. I owe them a great deal, especially, Lisa, the physical therapist who worked with me for most of my stay.

Entry filed under: OBSERVATIONS & OPINIONS, Update, Walt Trizna, WALT'S OBSERVATIONS. Tags: Devon Manor, physical therapy, rehab.