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Well, the seeds we've sown have finally germinated. Terry leaves 1st thing in the morning, by ambulance, for a Rehabilitation Clinic quaintly named the Riverfield Lodge.
The overwhelming message from all the docs, nurses, case manager etc., is one of "wow that's great", but the underlying warning is "fail, and the medical profession and medical aid will give up on her". Her confidence has been eroded so far that she sees her hospital bed as a comfort zone and place of safety, whereas it's really a place of pain and danger. Seldom a day goes by that she doesn't receive another accidental nursing bruise or skin tear, or feel the excruciating pain of another rib injury or aggrevation of a bed-sore. The rehab will need to work a miracle on her mind, the healing of her body will then follow.
Terry will be quite a challenge for them but if all goes well, and it simply has to, failure is NOT an option, then she will come straight home from there and I shall have the pleasure of taking her into the hospital as a walking patient for further interventions i.e. repair of the trachy hole and specialised wound treatment.
So, depending on your persuasion, please join me in holding thumbs, praying, self-flagulating etc., in aid of a successful outcome.
Incidently, Terry has accepted that her brother is history and was actually not too upset about it. Reckons she only has room for sincere people in her life and is probably better off without him and his poisonous mouth.
Btw, anyone know of a good wheelchair laying about that could be put to good use, say near a beach.
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Fingers crossed Doug...
I wonder if wheelchairs are equipped with GPS nowadays?
http://www.ncaonline.org/products/al...rs/index.shtml
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Senior Member
Rough, ROUGH day! I was just going to escort her there and then go to work, never made work. Terry's 'hospital security bubble' has been well and truly burst. She's petrified of what is to come and spent most of the day in tears, begging me to get her the hell out of there, even accused me of abandoning her.
I'm hoping she will start to develop relationships and trust with her rehab team, they seem like a good bunch. At least she has a much better TV and after a deposit of 50 bucks, her very own remote.
They insist on their patients being dressed and up and about, even if in wheelchairs, no laying in bed in PJ's all day. Considering her present state of weakness and immobility, it's gonna be tough on her.
Tough love sucks.
Btw, ever had to choose a woman's clothes for her?! I had to go home and select her wardrobe and realised just how unobservant I'd been with regard to what she normally likes to wear. I ended up carting most of her stuff along and played a game of "take home" or "hang in the cupboard". Not too bad, I scored about 75%.
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Btw, ever had to choose a woman's clothes for her?! I had to go home and select her wardrobe and realised just how unobservant I'd been with regard to what she normally likes to wear. I ended up carting most of her stuff along and played a game of "take home" or "hang in the cupboard". Not too bad, I scored about 75%.
Good man! I suspect you did a lot better there than some of us would have Doug!It's moments like that you'll look on and laugh I'm sure when you're both at home again. I continue to wish you all the best, even if it seems 'the best' is slow in coming sometimes. Keep up the good work.
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Haven't posted for a couple of days, partly due to exhaustion, rehab has added a couple of hours driving time to an already overloaded day, but mostly due to the emergence of the secret fears that I've kept to myself, hidden behind a mask of optimism. I've woken up to the realisation that we're not going to get our lives back, in anything like the shape we hoped for.
Four days in rehab and little to show for it. A team of 6 rehab specialists are carrying out their individual functions, all being very positive and hopeful, but the goals they're aiming at are so far short of what I was hoping for and what I keep assuring Terry we will achieve together, that I despair as well.
Rather than saving the life of the woman I love so dearly, I've trashed her dignity and condemned my fiercely independent woman to a life, or what's left of it, of total dependence, a prisoner in a severely damaged and pain-tormented body, that she can never again be proud of and will come to hate passionately.
If it were me, I might bear such physical devastation stoically but never her. I've just postponed the inevitable and caused her to suffer more than any human being should ever have to endure. I should be apologising and begging her forgiveness, but instead I'm going to sit holding her hand, a silly smile on my face, telling her how good things are going to be when she gets better.
Life doesn't have to end in death, it can end long before that and become something not worth having.
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