Modern medicine still amazes me! Here I was with a brand new rebuilt hip and the very next morning the physical therapist tells me it is time to get up and walk. Just like that. Who did she think she was, Jesus? She might as well have said “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” (John 5:8).
I looked at her like she was joking, the look she gave me said she wasn’t. Here I was less than 24 hours out of a major surgery and I’m wondering how in the world I’m supposed to get up and walk. I hadn’t been able to walk for the last 10 months. It was a good thing for pain medications!
My first attempt to get up and walk I made it all the way to the bathroom door. All 5 steps. Wow. That was exhausting.
The next time I was able to get as far as the hospital room door. In other words, I added about 3 more steps.
The physical therapists kept coming back, it didn’t matter if it was the same one or not, they all made me get up and walk. Granted it was with a walker, and they were holding onto me. But those first steps were some of the most exhausting steps I’ve taken in my life.
Surgery was on Tuesday, and by Saturday the doctor was telling me it was time to go to rehab. I will tell you I was excited to get out of the hospital, but I was terrified of how much more they might expect of me at the rehab facility.
Sitting in a wheelchair after arriving at the Physical Therapy Rehab facility Sunday August, 8. 2011.
Sunday morning, it was time to head to rehab where they would teach me to walk again.
They transferred me via ambulance. Check that off the bucket list! Not sure that it was ever on my bucket list, and honestly it was the most painful ride ever. I think the driver managed to find EVERY single pot hole in San Antonio. There were not enough pain medications for that trip!
We finally arrived at my new home for the next few weeks. I was never so grateful to be out of a vehicle.
I guess the therapists at the new facility decided an ambulance ride through San Antonio was enough torture for one day. I met my nurses, got settled in my room and slept really well that night.
If you have never spent any time in a physical therapy rehab facility, let me just say I was significantly younger than 99% of the people staying there.
After being there for a few short days, it became obvious that many of the other patients were not happy about being there. When the nurses and nurses aides came to my room and looked worn out. My husband (J.R.) and I talked to them, asked them about their families, found out their stories. They became our family. I like to think they left my room feeling a little refreshed because we weren’t yelling at them. J.R. had brought a bag of silicone bracelets our church wore all summer they were red and said “God is Big Enough”), he gave one to each of the nurses/nurses aides that came in my room. Many of them wore the bracelet the entire time I was there.
I spent 10 days in the rehab facility, but the people I met there made a lasting impression on me. I hope we made a lasting impression on them.
Time to go HOME!
