We’re turning the gas on, igniting it, and cooking on it ! (We’re cooking on gas mum !)
Picked up hot chicken and got in for 10.30am to find kp still fast asleep ! She had slept all the way through until my arrival.

We had a chat for 5-10 mins and then did the bath thing. Whilst we had our little chat a nurse popped in to give kp her tablets, and whilst she was in the emergency alarm went off. (There are 2 alarms a patient can pull, the “attention” button, and the “emergency” button. The attention button sounds one type of alarm and the “emergency” button sounds a more urgent-like sound alarm. The attention-type alarm is triggered by pushing a button on a pad on the end of a wire. The pad is normally kept close to the patient on their bed. The emergency one can not be pushed by the patients unless they can get out of bed because it is a button on the wall marked “Emergency”. The noise we could hear was the urgent one. The nurse immediately ran out of the door, no sooner had she stepped outside the door, than the alarm stopped.

Nurse :- It’ll be X. When she goes to the bathroom, she pushes it thinking it is the light switch.

The bathrooms have lights that automatically come on when you enter them, but they take a few seconds to realise you’re in the room, so naturally the first thing you do is look for a light switch button.

Nurse :- It’ll go off again in a few minutes when she leaves the bathroom as she “switches the light off”.

5 minutes after we went in the bathroom, it went off again for a few seconds. We laughed.

After the bath, we enjoyed our “chicken and chips” lunch. We both then decided on a snooze until physio (2.30pm).

Physio today was another good session. The main man is aiming to get kp ready for going home (for visits) as soon as possible. He told us yesterday that today would be spent strengthening kp’s muscles. Most of the session was spent doing just that. kp was on her back trying to lift her hips off the bed, using her legs to push the main man away, lifting a buttock at a time (always a good skill to have) etc etc… All of this, by the way, is very useful stuff, as it is all muscles needed for standing/walking, they are just being exercised whilst kp is lying down.

Regular bloggers will know that kp has been standing quite a lot this week and whilst standing, she has been swaying her hips from side to side (kind of putting all the weight on one foot, then the other, then the other etc…). I mentioned I thought this was to prepare kp for walking. Well, it probably is, but today I learned the true reason for it.

And herein lies the good news…..

One of the things kp needs to be able to do before she visits home is to be able to transfer from one surface (bed, for example), to a chair without the aid of a hoist.

TODAY, SHE DID JUST THAT !

With the aid of the main man. Here is how it happened. Towards the end of the session by the way, the Prof came in. He is the head of everything stroke at the hospital. He is our consultant’s boss (I think). He sat in for about 10-15 minutes seeing how kp was doing.

So, back to the transfer. kp was sat upright on the bench. and the wheelchair was positioned at 90′ to the bench, right next to the bench. With the main man’s assistance kp went from sitting to standing and just stood for a few seconds to get her balance. He then got her to do the swaying of the hips maneuvre where she takes all her weight off one leg and puts it on the other. After she had got into the swaying motion, he started moving the leg with no weight on into a different position, and within about 5 moves, he had turned her 90′ so she was now standing in front of her wheelchair. She then sat down and did the usual wiggles to be sat fully back in the wheelchair.

FAN-BL++DY-TASTIC !!

She had gone from the bench to the wheelchair with no hoist ! A big achievement.

He then went onto say how well she had done and that she just needs to work on strengthening her muscles so he has to do less work. Once she can do more of this herself, he will train me in how to do the bit that he does, so that we can think about getting her home for regular visits. He didn’t want to say when this will be, but given the progress kp has made this week alone, I think we are looking at a lot less than 6-8 weeks !

We are having a party on the Bank Holiday Monday for Adele’s birthday (at the hospital), and it would have been great if we could have got home for that, but I don’t think we are talking that short a time !

Well done kp, you have done a great week’s work ! Very proud of you !

dp
xxxxx