My Dad had another meeting with his surgeon this week and all of the news was good. First of all, his vertebrae have healed, so he is free of the neck brace. This is great because that thing is uncomfortable and has prevented him from being able to use his Cpap. Even without the machine, he should sleep better without that giant plastic collar on. He is also allowed to eat food that needs chewing! No more pureed hamburgers!
Best of all, the physical therapist said that if Dad continues to work as hard as he has been, he should be able to move back home in the next few weeks! Without his wheelchair!! They wanted to schedule meetings with all of us, three at a time, to show us how to help Dad with his exercises. Katie, MJ and I agreed to meet with Meredith, Dad’s PT trainer, today. We really just went over how Dad needs to get out of his chair, walk and sit back down. It didn’t take very long and the truth is, we’d all done it already, every time we took Dad home for a visit.
Dad told me that the surgeon, who is the guy who told us back at the beginning that he didn’t know what to expect from a guy Dad’s age (he’ll be 91 in a few days), admitted to Dad that when they opened up his neck and saw what a mess he’d made of it, they really didn’t have high hopes of his survival, much less his recovery. But here he was, less than three months later, standing on his feet, using his fingers and eating. Dad seems very surprised that anyone could have thought he wouldn’t recover. Those of us who know the man expected nothing less.
Not that he’s good as new, not by a long shot! He’s not new, he’s old. And he’s recently put his body through a terrible trauma! But he’s going to be better than any other 91 year old guy who broke his neck! He’s not as strong as needs to be yet but he’s getting stronger every day and he’s working like Gayle Sayers on his rehabilitation. His fine motor skills are better every day but he’s got a long way to go before he’s typing with all ten fingers again. But the fact that he’ll be strong enough in the next few weeks to be able to continue his recovery from home is great news.
This morning, a social worker met with them at their house, to go over all the changes that need to be made for Dad’s return. I haven’t seen the list yet but I can imagine: get rid of the rugs, all the little footstools and half the chairs. Mom’s got a lot of chairs. They make perfect sense when we’re all there but when it’s just the two of them, there are about 20 extra seats. That’s a lot of furniture to trip over.
It’s going to take Mom some time to get used to that idea. But we’ve got some time to figure out what’s necessary and what’s not.
We knew where to start. On the fourth, Dad was home for the day and before I left, we installed him in his recliner.
I was gone before it was time for him to leave but at that point, everyone discovered that it’s really really hard to get out of that chair. Too hard.
So after PT, MJ stayed with Dad as he ate his lunch and Mom, Katie and I went shopping. It was our lucky day! We found a very handsome, contemporary styled, comfortable leather lift recliner at Macy’s that just happened to be on sale. We got it for close to half price! It’s a thousand times better looking than the old, beat up monster of a recliner that Dad can no longer get out.
After we’d taken care of that chore, we went to Patrick’s for a late lunch. The food there is fabulous and we’d missed the lunch rush so we got our salads and chicken wrap really fast. It would have been fun under any circumstances but I think it was as good for Mom to get out of her current rut as it is for Dad to get home once in a while.
And now we can actually see a light at the end of this particular tunnel. Things will be different, of course, but at least they’ll be free to figure out what will work for them. Even if all you’re going to do is hang out all day, its best to hang out at home.