Sung to The Three Lions :- “She’s coming home, she’s coming home, Karen is coming home (for a visit)” (You have to sing “for a visit” VERY quickly)

What a day. It started off bad (for me) and got better and better.

I hadn’t had much sleep last night, caused by a late night at the hospital, a long blog to write, an upset stomach over the night and dogs needing to be let out. I was exhausted this morning when I arrived and wanted to go straight to snooze, but it wouldn’t have been fair on kp to arrive and then sleep. So we chatted and I showed her the video footage took from the party. She had loads of smiles as she watched it. It was such a good day, it really broke the monotony of hospital life.

The video footage is now available (courtesy of IT-PS.com and Nigel Gibbs). The clips are quite long downloads and could take from 3 minutes to 30 minutes to download depending on your connection speed.

Yvonne and KP – Part One
Yvonne and KP – Part Two
Michelle dancing to “Making yer mind up” (Bucks Fizz) – Part One
Michelle dancing to “Making yer mind up” (Bucks Fizz) – Part Two
Michelle dancing to “Making yer mind up” (Bucks Fizz) – Part Three
Michelle “Line Dancing”
All Together Now

So, back to today. I was quite ratty this morning and if a bed component didn’t work correctly, or a sheet didn’t tuck under kp when I told it to, then I was getting annoyed with it. I apologised to kp and explained why, she was understanding

We pretty much went straight into the bath. Well, I didn’t but it’s big enough to get two in ! We were back in time for lunch, but kp didn’t feel like any Chicken Pie and instead opted to put her makeup on. Snooze followed (yay !) and we slept from about 12.25pm until 2.20pm. I was out for the count as soon as my head hit the pillow.

10 minutes later we were in the physio room. The session started off with kp transferring from the wheelchair to the bench (WITHOUT the hoist). The main man helped but kp did a lot of the work herself. Not bad for having no warm up ! He then proceeded to put kp through a whole stack of exercises which she did from the sitting position. Some of them looked really hard. She had to get her legs really wide and virtually have one on the bench while the other was on the floor with a slight lean to the side. I am sure it must be a woman-specific exercise, because I didn’t even attempt this one as it looks so torturous on the nether regions. She did very well and I think the exercises were designed to strengthen kp’s left leg and her ability to lock her knee (crucial for standing on her own).

After this the main man introduced the “swivel standing thing”. I must find out what they call it, but it allows kp to transfer more easily from A to B. Basically, it involves kp standing up on this swivelling platform from surface A, someone whizzing it round so her bum is over surface B and then kp sitting. kp didn’t understand how it worked, she looked daunted.

She asked

kp:- “Will you show me what I have to do before I do it ?”
Main Man (laughing) :- “Yes, don’t worry, we’re not just going to ask you to do it.”

Basically, kp grabs the rail on the gadget with her good arm (for stability), does a stand and then it rotates, and she sits down.

She stills needs quite a bit of assistance to stand, but the main man and his assistant (who is a big Daniel O’Donnell fan) got her standing onto the platform.

The session was finished with kp standing on the gadget, swivelling round to the wheelchair and sitting down. She did really well. The main man believes that she isn’t quite ready to do this with just me present and that she needs to get stronger in her standing before she can do it with no physios present. I fully agree. In typical fashion, kp asked when she might be ready to do it without physios present.

And here comes the good news…………

Main Man :- Well, not this weekend, but the following weekend should see you strong enough.

He wisely added some cautions that “it isn’t set in stone” etc etc…..but it was great to hear talk of a visit home. kp understands that it may not be next weekend, but it has given her something to aim for. I asked if there was anything we can do to maximise the chance of that weekend, and we now have a set of exercises to do that will help strengthen key muscles.

So, fingers crossed, with a following wind, kp may be at home for a visit on the 10th September weekend.

She was absolutely thrilled with just hearing talk of “going home”, and when we got back to the room, she put her fist in the air and waved it around. We had a group hug (ALL TWO OF US). It was great to see her so happy. She will go all out to make sure she is strong enough to go home. I just hope she doesn’t have any infections or knockbacks in the next 10 days. She does have the start of a cold today.

It wasn’t long after we got back from physio that Vivian arrived, one of kp’s work mates. She shed a few tears when she saw kp, which was nice. kp couldn’t believe that she was upset over her.

Vivian and kp talked like they were back at work and had a good conflab.

After about 30 minutes Marie and Ronnie arrived and it was time for me to go.

An excellent day overall. Some great news and something big to aim for !