18 April 2025
Yesterday Kevin the Physical Therapist caught me coming in and asked me to bring Joyce to the gym for her session when I got her up. I've been putting her wheelchair in the hallway so she has to walk to it about 30 feet every day because that's usually the only walking she does.
But lately there's a gent in the adjacent room who needs dialysis and leaves by gurney so that area of the hallway gets a little congested. I've been moving the wheelchair further away, around the corner, for a 60 foot walk, more or less.
And Joyce hasn't complained.
It's also the only time she walks without the chair following her so she knows she has to walk to the chair, no sitting. And she does fine.
With Cassie in front of her higher up the stairs and Kevin keeping an eye on her feet, she did make it up the three normal steps to the top.
But yesterday when she was dressing, Kevin spotted the chair and wheeled it back by the room but out of sight. So when Joyce turned the corner she didn't see the chair.
I knew Kevin was following us with the chair but didn't say anything because Cassie the Physical Therapist had jumped in front of Joyce to explain the situation and encouraged her to walk a little further to the stairs, a platform that is in front of the sliding glass doors with steps on either side.
Joyce has been doing the shorter steps but today they wanted her to try the normal steps. The question is whether she can safely raise her foot that high.
Well, not quite.
With Cassie in front of her higher up the stairs and Kevin keeping an eye on her feet, she did make it up the three normal steps to the top. But she kept stubbing her toe and Kevin had to help get it on the next step. She's close though and they were thrilled.
Coming down was a breeze.
My job during all this is to remind Joyce, "Up with the good, down with the bad." Which I learned from Wayne at San Francisco Prosthetics when my father was learning how to use his prosthesis. It's easier to climb steps leading with your good leg and easier to descend by dropping your weaker leg first.
Of course the physical therapists don't know which leg is the one with the wound. So I add, "Go up with your right leg, down with your left." Then they know which is which.
When she sat back in the wheelchair, she smiled and said, "I didn't scream." Which may have been the biggest step of all.