53. Can Everyone Be Upstanding

By March, I was being taken on little walks in the gym. I would need a person on each side, usually Rachel and Alison, and originally someone would have to place my left foot for me and bend my knee, as I couldn't do that at first. My balance was the trucky thing, my torso was very unstable. I also did a few unsupported stands, where I usually shot myself in the foot by talking, making myself laugh, then wobbling. When I said "wooOaAahH!" it meant I was loosing balance. The physios become accustomed to the noise, but I didn't ever fall. I made a helpful 'get on ya feet' (YouTube/Spotify) that was actually more of a hindrance, as the juxtaposition of songs made me laugh and loose balance.

There was one night where I had one awful lurching wobble as I stood. If someone hadn't been with me, I would have fallen. I swayed way too far forward as I stood up, and painfully remembered I couldn't put out my left hand to steady myself. The health care assistant I was with yelled, "what are you DOING?!" and batted me back. I felt more guilty for putting them in a tight spot, rather than afraid for myself. It was the staff member's reaction that shook me more than anything, though I'll never forget the horrible plunging dread that doused me in that sickening sway.

There was some fun kit in the gym I got to play with use, like a treadmill with a harness, to hold the patient's weight, which looked like a baby bouncer. We only tried this once, but Rachel deemed the flashing heart on the display far too distracting for me, ("look, I've got 100 lives!"). There was also a leg bike you could strap your feet into, which I started using every evening with my family. Some kit I didn't think was fun was a giant connect four taller than me (in a wheelchair). I never thought connect four was that fun a game, but it is a therapy favourite. However, a friend did walk in to see me and 3 others playing volleyball with the connect four as a net, and a blown-up plastic glove as a ball. It was all quite laughable as none of us were very mobile, most could only use one arm, and it was really a chance for some physios to get all competitive and show off.

In all this time, there was one day I felt a bit tired early, and got into bed and fell asleep at 5:30. I was woken 10 minutes later, to my dad and sister sitting worriedly either side of me, with someone taking my blood pressure. The nurse had said it was unusual behaviour for me, so they told someone to do observations. I was just annoyed that I couldn't get a break. That was my one nap in neuro rehab. Ridiculous; 'oh, they're sleepy, let's wake them up to check why they're sleepy!'

I think my favourite moment is something the ward sister did. I used to get given an injection everyday. Blood thinners. Given to everyone not mobile to protect from DVT. One time, the ward sister was coming up to give me the injection and with a straight face, asked my sister where she would like the needle. Took me a second to realise she was making a joke about how similar we looked. (I never mentioned this lovely daily injection before.)

In March, Lindsay had to leave. Her job post meant she rotated every 6 months. I was sad. Before she left, Lindsay, Kerri and I made cookies together. The neighbouring stroke ward had a therapy kitchen,  so we went in there. My mum bought in ingredients for us. We were very enthusiastic. It went terribly. I'm going to blame the flour we used, but the blobs of dough all ran into each other and congealed into one crispy rectangle, that we scraped into a bowl, and returned to our ward, shame-facedly to offer out our flaky sticky mound. It did taste very nice, just didn't look it. No one even made the joke about cookies crumbling.

I'm laughing because my hand went in the mix for the photo.