Day 92 - Friday 29th July

Have feet, will stand !

Very Very busy day today.

I was a bit late today as the new change in shifts mean I pick up Friday lunch (normally Marie's domain). I carefully got everything I was told to pick up and some safety items in case of cock up. Needless to say, even the emergency items were cock ups.

kp:- I don't like that kind of chicken, I like chicken breast
kp:- I said spiced loaf, not spiced loaf with orange.
kp:- Tomato and Herb Bread ?! (in Peter Kay "Garlic Bread" voice)
etc...

It seems only Marie can do the shopping for lunches ! :-) After a little "discussion" about lunch, we got into our routine.

Bath - Great !

Redressing of wounds

Then it was time for the lunch. Well, I am very pleased to say kp thoroughly enjoyed the lunch.

dp:- So, it's ok is it ?
kp:- It's lovely, thanks
dp:- So, that lambasting earlier is taken back ?

kp in fits of laughter :- What the hell is lambasting ?!

kp had a really good laugh at me saying that word and I was laughing at kp's laughing !

Cracking Stuff :-)

After lunch, short snooze, followed by the discovery that kp's bed has packed in. This is pretty key :-(

It has buttons for going up, down, tilting etc, which is very important for kp who can't do these moves on her own. The physios arrived at this point, and they did as much as they could but also couldn't get it working :-(

When we mentioned it to the ward staff, the estates department hinted it might be Monday before it's fixed. In karen's condition, this is really awkward. She needs to sit up to eat, but more importantly if she gets a sickness bout, it's very hard being sick on your back or side :-( Last I left this, they were going to make it an urgent job, but by 5pm (Friday!) they hadn't been. Fingers crossed.

Back to the main event. After the physios tried to make the bed work, we got in to the nitty gritty of the physio session itself.









So, the standing first considered running through things with Karen. I took a photo of 2 of the physios running through things with Karen, but when they detected an imminent photo, they retracted instantly from the shot, it was very funny to see.













The next stage involved 4 physios, 1 behind kp, 1 at each leg, and 1 in front. This next set of photos shows Karen going from sitting to standing. It took immense effort on the part of Karen to get there and probably took about 15-20 seconds to do with a few "Owwwwwwws" and "nearly made its" along the way. It needed lots of help from the physios and lots of direction as to what muscles she should be using. There was absolutely no way Karen could have done this on her own at the moment, but this was NEVER expected. The photos below make it look easy, but it was ever so hard for Karen. From an onlooker's perspective, it looked very awkward, with so many helpers moving body parts to assist, but the end result was kp standing herself. Every half a second or so, her knees would buckle and the physios would have to be there to ensure she didn't drop.

On the first standing attempt, Karen had her right (good) arm on the table in front, but her left (stroke) arm was just being supported by a physio so it didn't get in the way. When kp attempted to stand, she really tried to get her left arm on the table as well, but it wouldn't go when she told it to. This made the standing look very awkward. On the second attempt, both arms were placed on the table in front of her, and it went a bit smoother.

In the following photos, the physios faces have been purposefully masked.

Here is Karen half way between sitting and standing :-


Karen standing (over the moon with herself) :-


Karen standing (dp saying "smile for the camera") :-

All of the above photos were took on the second standing attempt.

These two attempts completely drained Karen, and the first thing she said after the attempts was she could see how much work it was going to take. The second thing she said was "can she go back to her room to lie down ?" :-)

She enjoyed the experience and it is a great finish to a storming week !

On the way back from physio, Karen bumped into another similarly aged lady who had had a stroke. Karen was keen to know how long it takes from "first standing attempt" to "walking" - the answer in this lady's case was 3 weeks. I doubt very much kp will be as quick as that given her pelvis, hip, arm complications but I don't think she has realised that yet.

I didn't get chance to go through the experience with her as, no sooner was she hoisted onto bed she was doing the "Zzzzzzzzzz" thing.

At about 4pm, Marie arrived with daughter Adele, and Grand daughters, Adele and Abbie.