Health Update

It is hard to believe I have been home from the hospitals for two weeks yesterday.  I have been tracking my activity levels.  Two weeks ago I struggled to walk with the walker for three or four laps of the hallway in the condo building, coming back in exhausted and sweating.  I built day by day, growing bored with the hallways after a few days and venturing outside.  Yesterday we went into Old Town Alexandria to see a visiting tall ship, and I walked for about 40 minutes in 85 degree temperatures.  A couple of hours later I had another hour of physical therapy - the new PT service is challenging me and helping me expand my limits.

I have to be honest, the therapy hurts.  I am moving muscles have not been active in months as my mobility had declined, I am bearing weight on body parts that have not held me up for a long time, I was up on my hands and knees for the first time in over a year yesterday, and stretching body parts that are stiff and painful.  Each day, I am more able to do things.  Yesterday I used a cane or two, most of the time, leaving the walker to the side.  When I finished therapy, I folded the walker and used the cane to go to the car, and to walk back to the condo when we returned home.  My how far I have come in two weeks, and I still have a long way to go. Me knees and feet need the most work.  My knees are stiff, but getting stronger each day.  My feet are very stiff, at the end of yesterday's PT session the therapist worked my feet, it was very painful, I was expecting to hear the sound of something breaking, but I stuck it out, this morning I have more feeling in the my feet then I have had in months. Progress takes work, and work is sometimes painful.

I am very grateful for the messages of support from friends and fellow bloggers.  I have had wonderful comments, email exchanges, text message exchanges, cards, gifts and phone calls.  In the darkest days of the hospital stay a couple of people got phone calls from me in the shadow of pain-meds - thank you for allowing me to ramble.  A couple of people have offered advice on dealing with the emotional stress of all of this, THANK YOU, you were far more help then all of the medical providers who were more interested in my blood pressure and pain level, then the state of my psyche, even when it was obvious that my emotions were being barely concealed.