Wow! What a couple of years (Part 2)

After returning home I was contacted by my local community hospital, that was only 1500 metres from our house to undertake my therapies.

I was asked if I wanted to undertake my sessions at home but I opted to have these at the hospital, which meant I needed to walk the relatively short distance to the out-patient therapies area. This excluded the initial session for each of them. My occupational therapist (OT) was my most memorable as whilst making a cup of tea, I reached up to the cupboard to grab a mug, struggling with my right arm and hand and was then advised to use my left arm, to make my life easier. I was amazed, immediately I advised my OT that I was not going to make my life easier and I was right handed and would continue to use my right arm.

I was due to go to my first physio session on the Tuesday and so wanted to see how long it would take me to walk to the hospital. As I was still walking like a drunk trying to walk straight, the distance I covered was nearly a third more than a regular journey as I swayed between either edge of the path.

I continued to undertake physio sessions twice a week, with the focus being on my balance, leg and arm muscles. As an example as to how weak I was, I was having trouble using my right tricep to raise my arm, from behind my head with a 2 kg weight, 15 times. I can currently undertake the same exercise with 10kgs for 20 repetitions extremely easily.

As part of my OT I also had to learn to build up my fine motor controls and simple functions with my right arm and hand. I couldn't draw a continual straight line  or trace around lines, my hand shook like a persons with  multiple sclerosis and my writing was similar to that of a 5 year old's. Once I'd improved to such an extent I tried to write, however I tried undertake some joined up writing and found I didn't know how to join to letters. I then took out the books that I'd previously asked my daughter to purchase, which were to help educate pre-schoolers. I then used these to trace and copy, which eventually led to me being able to undertake partially joined up writing.

In the same time span I was accepted as an out patient for speech therapy, I was undertaking these sessions once a week, with reading aloud, tongue twisters and provided with exercises and reading to undertake. I was not happy with my speech and one of the areas that I wanted to resolve quickly as I wanted to fell confident on the phone and in interviews.

I continued with these activities until early November when I was advised by all my therapists that they were recommending that I didn't need their expertise and the physio said that I was not a danger to myself or to the community and therefore I would be released. I was not happy with this and felt that I was only 80% recovered and still couldn't jog.

During this period my wife had bought me a computer program called "Brain Fitness Program", to which I was undertaking at least an hour a day exercising my brain. I struggled at some aspects and noticed my wife watching a listening, knowing that I wasn't doing too well. To her credit she tried  not to show it and I never spoke about my noticing her reactions. I continued to undertake this until February 2011.

At the end of October 2010 I wanted to go for a run, knowing that I wasn't perfect but felt the need to try and achieve this task. I was still having a problem with my gait but not aware as to what the problem was.

 I went out on my own, walked to a starting point and started to try and jog. I immediately new there was a major problem, my right leg was like a very compat piece of rubber and every step caused a pain in my hip: my leg had no suspension, the muscles were either fully on or fully off. I walked back home, wondering how I was going to resolve this.

My wife arranged for us to take a break, a week away in the sun. I was reasonably comfortable out and about but going to an airport and enduring these crowds was a new experience. One experience I remember was whilst taking my seat on the plane. After placing my bag in the overhead locker I went to take the centre seat. I'd forgotten that regular height people had to duck their head's a bit and banged my head on the overhead locker; this was just one of the experiences I was going to have to relearn.

As we were next to the beach, I new that walking in the soft sand would be a good test for my balance; this did and I found walking quickly draining. What I didn't know was that walking in thongs would be difficult. I was expending energy in holding on to the thong with my toes and ended up taking these off as again my energy for walking was being drained. I'd commented that I'd now be wearing sandles.

Whilst on holiday I was also wanting to test out if I could still swim, I walked into the pool, stepped slowly down the steps, whilst holding onto the side and was now in the shallow end of the pool. Wow, was I apprehensive about trying to swim, I seriously thought that I'd end up going around in circles. I took the plunge and I could swim, slowly, but I could swim, YAY!

Whilst in the pool I became aware that  the water was taking most of body weight and I realised that I could start hopping and wouldn't be having a negative affect on my body. So I started hopping in the pool and continued doing this as part of my rehab back home.

In November 2010 we were going to attend the annual Country Fire Brigade (CFA) function, my wife had just completed her first full year as a fire-fighter and it was also the first time that I was going to go out with a group of people. I was nervous about attending, I was still not comfortable on my feet, my balance was okay but very unsteady if I was bumped. My speech was still not good and the aphasia meant I couldn't easily be part of a conversation. The evening went without drama but I was so taken with the way the members responded to me, they were really nice and made me feel like a member of the family. It was the next day that I decided to speak to the Brigade Captain and ask if he'd support me trying to become an operational fire-fighter.

To be continued..........