rehab

Marie stayed in a regular hospital room for a week. She spent Thanksgiving 2000 in her room. They served her ground turkey. It wasn't in a patty shape like a hamburger. It was small chunks of groung up meat. It did not look appetizing and she said it didn't taste very good. Since she hadn't eaten solid food for so long and since she had trouble with mother nature, they wanted to play it safe with her diet. Her mother did sneak her in a dish of spaghetti and homemade sauce. I'm sure the nurse saw it, but she didn't say anything. Happy Thanksgiving, Marie.

The doctors wanted Marie to go through rehabilitation. Her short term memory wasn't good, she still struggled with using utensils, and her balance was bad. She was scheduled for speech, occupational, and physical therapies. This hospital has a Rehab unit attached to it, and it is used by both inpatients and outpatients. After a week in a regular ward, she was cleared to be moved to the rehabilitation floor. This would allow her to have intensive therapies each day.

Physical therapy would help her strength and balance. Occupational therapy would help her day to day functioning. Using utensils, getting dressed, bathe, and other daily life issues. Speech therapy would help her the short term memory and word searching ability. She now had problems finding appropriate words. Her basic math skills were gone. Money was a foreign concept. Her writing became almost illegible. If you had her write her name, it was so small you couldn't read it. I don't mean half the normal size, or even a quarter of the size. I mean way, way smaller. Even she couldn't read her own writing. She needed rehab and she was going to get it, but she was not happy about it. According to her, there was nothing wrong. Everything was normal from the small writing to falling over when she walked. She developed into an angry person that did not want any help. She wanted to go home.

Looking back on this time period, I have to comment that when Marie first awoke from the surgery, she didn't seem to have any of these issues. It all changed after the spinal fluid drainage level was changed. They began to show themselves after the four day sleep. Was it a coincidence or would these issues have shown up anyway? I will never know. When it was all happening, it was one thing after another. It was only after a few years that I looked back, and wondered if all these things were connected. As far as the anger she was having, I believe it was the anti-seizure medication. It seemed to change her personality. I believe the phenobarbital dimmed the light in her spirit. And, that wouldn't change for weeks.