We had breakfast with Marie before we took her to the bus station in Durham and we headed to Physio.

Today’s session began with a focus on Karen’s walking. The physio emphasised of kp exercising her pelvic muscles in order to better her walking. She showed kp how she walked by placing a mirror in front of her and getting her to watch herself…..

Every time kp takes a step (with her weight onto her right side) her whole hip gives way and she slumps on to the leg that is carrying the weight. This is due to weakness in her right side due to the pelvic/hip fractures and the fact the muscles have wasted away due to disuse.

These muscles are kp’s top priority to exercise now according to the physio. We had been a bit lax in our exercises (you would think I was doing them when I say it like that), because of the Prague trip.

With a way forward for the walking, focus turned to kp’s left arm/hand. It seems physios have certain methods to gauge how well progress is being made in different areas. Frequent bloggers may remember the timed walks kp had to do in hospital to gauge improvement in her walking. Well, today the physio wanted to measure the speed in which kp could place 10 pins (small ones) into 10 holes and then remove them all. The idea being they could remeasure it in a month or so time to see how fast she got.

Here is kp trying to get a pin in a hole………

Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to get any of the pins in any of the holes But, as the physio pointed out, that’s ok, because we can see how many she manages in a few weeks time.

Knowing she couldn’t get any, the physio introduced a bottle full of buttons. kp had to pick a button out of the glass jar and put them on the table.

kp has very little control over her left arm/hand and when she tried it was very much like one of those cranes at the arcades where you hope to win a watch by grabbing it with the crane hook. Occasionally she would get a button, occasionally she would knock the jar of buttons over. This was a bit disheartening, so……..

The physio changed it round so kp had to get the buttons (one by one) out of the jar lid (much lower on the table) and place them in the jar. kp started off with all the effort for the movements coming from her shoulder. The physio showed kp how it should be done, and kp put all her concentration into doing it the way the physio suggested. It definately helped kp as by the end of the button-moving session, kp was able to pick up a button with her thumb/forefinger and drop it in the jar !! There was a DEFINATE improvement !!

After a bit of a rest, the physio got some playdoh kind of material that looked like blutak and gave it to Karen.

Here is kp with the blue stuff………

kp was trying to mould it, but struggle, I just wanted a play myself but had to contain myself.

It came from a container marked “Medium”. Apparently, you can get this gunk in different consistencies and she tried Karen on the middle-of-the-road stuff. What kp had to do was try and squash it with her left hand and ideally make it into a ball. Well, kp had difficulties with the blue “medium” variety, so the physio went to get the more malleable yellow stuff. It is the weirdest stuff. If you left a round ball shape of even the “hard” level on a table, and came back to it an hour later, it would be as flat as a pancake and have spread across the table.

kp could mould the “yellow” stuff and she has to practice moulding it into shapes over the next week. She offered to carry the “yellow” stuff to the car. But she forgot it was there……….Here is the result…………

It comes off fine though weirdly…

I rolled it into a ball, left it on the car dashboard. It was flat as a pancake when we got home.

I am getting too excited about a ball of goo.

Our next appointment was at home and was a chap from Social Services to assess kp financially to see how much she should contribute towards her own care. He was very amenable and very helpful. We’ll know the result soon.

Then at 4pm the neuropsychologist (NP) came. Regular bloggers will know that kp felt VERY down last week and we had arranged to see her. She was lovely. This lady is so insightful and can really get to the bottom of mental issues.

kp explained her predicament and the NP pointed kp in the right direction on a number of issues. When she got to the question of kp’s mood, Karen broke down into tears and got quite emotional. I hate to see her upset and my gut reaction is to jump up and go and comfort her, but I held myself back so that the NP could tackle the issues.

There was lots of upset for about an hour as the NP talked kp through her situation. There is too much to go into on the blog, but suffice to say………the NP hit the nail completely on the head. In a later tearful discussion, after the NP had left, it is clear that …..

• kp is grieving her old life. She wishes she hadn’t had the accident and she was the old “kp”
• She feels like she isn’t the life and soul of a group like she used to be. kp would always be the funnest thing at a family gathering. She gave Prague as an example. We had a good time, but she would have been more the jokemaker as the old “kp”.

The NP was superb and I have no doubt that she has helped kp put somethings into perspective. In the short term, kp has got upset about her situation, but kp couldn’t have gone forward until she realises where she is, which I think she will now start to do.

There are to be more NP sessions over the next few weeks which I really feel will help kp.

We had a very eventful day today, and kp was exhausted. As soon as we had chatted after the NP’s departure, kp went straight to bed.

That’s enough excitement for one day.

Tomorrow, we have Tracy and Marge coming to stay with us for a few days. We are both really looking forward to seeing them. I am especially looking forward to the huge amount of cooking they will be doing whilst they are here. I have ordered in loads of food from Tesco’s so they can cook Lasagne’s and Shepherd’s Pies until they drop. I have enough foil containers coming to freeze enough food to last us until Xmas 2008.

On a serious note, we are looking forward to seeing you two !! But, on a serious note, I HAVE GOT LOADS OF FOIL CONTAINERS WAITING !

Only kidding (cough cough).

Fingers crossed, kp is feeling more positive when I wake her up at 7.30pm