The good thing is that I have Layla back as my day
nurse so the weekend won’t be totally boring.
Pam called around 11 to let me know Clarabelle is
okay and running fine. That’s one less thing to worry about.
Adrienne came by at 10 and told me she had a lot
of free time so if I was up to it she could come back before lunch and we could
walk some more and then transfer into the wheelchair to sit up for lunch. I, of
course, was more than up for the idea. We doubled the amount of walking I did
yesterday with even less effort and we didn’t even bother with a physio
assistant being that the only thing the assistant was used for was to carry my
water cup. We then got back to the room and performed another graceful bed to
wheelchair transfer.
We had Kelsey, the on-call OT came by and made
some adjustments to the angle of the wheelchair legrests in hope of reducing
the pressure on my coccyx. The changes helped but I’m still having tailbone
problems. It doesn’t make sense why I don’t get the same problem in bed. In the
chair, after about an hour my tail bone feels brusied. In bed the butt pain is
caused more by sheering and feels more like a scrape or a burn. The sheering
effect is unfortunately normal but is lessened now that I can shift around much
more.
I discovered that Adrienne has the same form of
directional dyslexia, I have. She told me to turn left and I made her point
instead. She was relieved to hear she wasn’t the only one with this problem.
I’m a great navigator on road trips but the driver has to watch for my hand
signals through the corner of their eyes. BJ’s sister, Sue who was an
elementary school teacher once told me of a hint she would teach her pupils.
“Look at the back of your left hand and it form an L for left.” Me: “but the
right hand doesn’t form an R”. She just gave up and wrote me off as hopeless.
This is a warning to anyone getting spoken directions from me, make sure I go
over them one step at a time and let me think them through.
I had another small victory getting ready to get
up to walk. I was able to put my left sock on myself and was only an inch or
two away from getting the right one on. It may sound trivial but anyone who has
any injury to your knees, hips or back will know how difficult this simple task
is.
I’m also quite proud of my wheelchair to bed
transfer today. Layla came into assist just in case I had problems but I
managed to do it smoothly in just a couple of moves basically hopping on my
ass. Layla only had to deal with the aftermath of moving my tables back in
place and returning my wheelchair to storage.
I do believe I’m ready for the next whatever it
may be. I think I’ve proven that I can weight bear and need to get past the
Frankenstein walk. Unfortunately, the next step has to be authorized by the
doctors and they are nowhere to be found over the holidays.
Obviously, doctors are not the only ones who take
time off during the holidays. It appears that there is a shortage of nurses
even in the casual pool. Today because there was no one available, Jayne and
Sonya were working on the directly with the patients as primary caregivers.
Sonya usually handles new admissions up from surgery then turns them over to
other RNs. I had not seen Jayne doing any traditional nursing duties until
today. Her duties normally are more administrative. They even brought in a
casual care aid at around mid-morning. The problem with bringing in a casual
when you are this short staffed is that a casual requires more supervision and
you possibly lose the benefit of extra staff.
Being in adjacent the nurses’ station gives one a
great view to observe everything going. It is interesting to watch the families
of new arrivals running back and forth to the counter asking questions and
demanding immediate attention because Mom is apparently the only patient on the
floor.
I keep coming back to this topic but let’s face it
I live in my bed and everything I do; I do it in my bed. Layla for some reason
always seems to do a two for one swap for my urinal bottles; for every one she
takes away she brings me two empties. By the end of my shift I’m well stocked
for a long road trip.
Cat took over as my night nurse. She is a complete
change from Layla. Both are great nurses but while Layla is always so
happy-go-lucky; Cat is more serious and caring.
I’m finally beginning to make a little more
headway reading “Shantaram” and I was able to knock off over a hundred pages so
that’s 300 down and only 600 to go.
Another Cookie by George, another orange and
another blue pill then it was light’s out.
To be continued...
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