Dear everyone, Driving home last night from the Hospital the car was silent, no music, no conversation, didn’t even talk to myself not one word. I don’t remember a single mile of the journey, when I arrived home I just sat in the car for a while having a smoke and just looking out of the windscreen. This all started last Friday when we had a meeting with; Psychiatrists, Physio and Occupational Therapist (still don’t really know what they do, but I’m sure its very important). Prior to the meeting Angie and I had a chat to discuss our plans, I had prepared a list of short and medium term goals, simple stuff really like, neck brace removed, feeding and catheter tubes removed. Walking distance and frequency etc etc. We agreed that they weren’t pushing hard enough. Angie asked me what I wanted her to say to which I replied “anything you want darling” “okay I’ll just keep quiet”. (that’ll be a first I thought maybe she has changed) We entered the meeting Angie leading the way in her new deluxe wheelchair, chatting away as usual about this and that. The meeting commenced and we all started discussing her progress, ( which has been remarkable ) Angie managed to keep quiet for about 3 minutes I think and then off she went. ( no change here than )Two hours later after we finished the meeting with smiles all around I asked her how come she didn’t keep quiet? “Well you know me, never one to be a shrinking violet.” We agreed at the meeting goals for the next three weeks, which basically means more time in the chair, more walking, more physio, more psychiatry stuff and more challenge. So Friday saw her spend ten hours out of bed (should have been six but Angie felt she wanted to continue until she had a numb bum) in her chair, different world when you are able to manoeuvre yourself to change your view other than looking at the ceiling. Over the next few days everything started to drastically improve, her frozen shoulder started to ease, as she is now ore active with her arms (mainly directing the nurses to fulfil her every demand ) she slept better because she was more tired. She started to keep a detailed diary of everything she is doing and thinking, also to keep a track of the names of the nurses and everything they do for her. She started to play her music and read her books and magazines. Saturday saw a new iPhone 6+ for her, (thought the bigger screen would help with texting) I only received twenty eight texts on Saturday and seven phone calls, I think she was practising, by the end she was word and grammar perfect. (much better than before the fopaux I thought ) Sunday saw her tidying her ( only seventeen texts and 4 phone calls today ) wardrobe sorting out her washing and drawing the floorpan of the pub and our home, never mind writing me a list of clothing she requires from home, (Christmas day she could barely write) interestingly the list was pretty specific. She always like to be co-ordinated no matter what the circumstances. Over the last five days the progress made has been astonishing, (eight weeks ago she didn’t know who I was ) I’ve seen some amazing things over the last fourteen weeks, however nothing quite like the last five days. She doesn’t remember everything ( yet ) there are still lots of gaps here and there, the gaps are strange and follow no logic. I think, but I don’t know her brain is building a huge jigsaw, to start with there are lots of pieces that have been mixed up in a box thats had an almighty bang. Each piece comes through randomly as it finds its way to the correct place, as with all jigsaws it takes some time to build the full picture. So she can remember all the specific detail of where she bought my watch for my fortieth birthday, but cannot remember where here radio is in the kitchen. ( all in good time I feel ) When I said she was on a hundred mile journey back to the boys and I, this journey in my mind was going to take up to two years, ( we were prepared for that ) Now I have no idea whatsoever how long it is going to take, all I know is that she seems to be walking a mile a day at the moment ( every achievement she makes spurs her on to do even better next time ) which can’t stop me from thinking that she may be home even sooner than I could have possibly imagined, albeit I cannot really let myself think that just yet. Paul x
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 08:51:57 +0000