Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
A Spirited Day
2 December 2024
Last night Joyce text me that she wanted to come home. But she was under the impression her CNA, LVN, RN and two therapists would come to the house to help her get better. No, I explained. They only work at Golden Heights.
"So how do I get home?" she wrote. "Take the bus?"
I told her to work with her therapists. Get out of bed, stand up with the walker, take steps, sit in the wheelchair, climb stairs. Bit by bit resume your life.
So I wasn't expecting much today when Christina drove me over.
But she wanted me to put her magic shoes on so she could get up but she waited for Cassie to help her onto the walker and into a new, lighter, narrower chair she can propel by herself.
Cassie suggested going to the gym to try one of the exercise machines but Joyce was strongly against it. We both pushed back but Cassie was nicer than me. "How about if we try it and if it hurts, we'll stop?"
Joyce agreed.
By the time we got there, though, the SciFit was in use. So Cassie suggested the Spirit Cycle, which exercises your arms. A good starter exercise. She rolled Joyce up to it and got her going and for 15 minutes Joyce cranked the handle, taking a break every now and then.
I rolled her around the facility after that because she didn't want to go back to the room. Her roommate watches games shows when she's in the room, which can be, uh, annoying, although her roommate is a good sport about it.
After we made the circuit and she saw it was a sunny day with no wind, I suggest we go outside. She agreed. So I wheeled her out the front door and down the street to the corner. Then we came back to the entrance and sat in the sun for a few minutes.
It was her first time outdoors in weeks. Not counting ambulance rides.
So I took a picture. Which she liked.
Sheik the CNA and I got her back into bed, the first time it's been down without the Hoyer lift (which worried him). Cassie hadn't thrown a sling over the chair when Joyce got it and I didn't mention it, thinking we could get her back into bed with the walker.
She didn't get up with just my help when we tried. And with two of us she worried about falling because, well, she doesn't lean forward. But we got her up on the walker, she shuffled around the sit on the bed and got it.
I took off her magic shoes and Christina put on her hospital socks.
Small as it might sound, it was progress.