Today was mom's first full day of rehab. I spent the whole day at the hospital and watched the whole thing. Let me tell you, this intense rehab is not for the faint of heart. And it can be difficult to watch at times as her mind and body are pushed to their limits. By watching the physical and occupational therapists, speech therapists, psychologists, respiratory therapists, etc. work with mom, you see how much the aneurysm and strokes really affected both her mind and body.
My dad sent this e-mail out to some of the family yesterday, so I thougth I'd just copy and paste it for a quick update to everyone else:
Today has been a remarkable day. We appreciate the faith and prayers of all those who have been helping us and praying for us. Today Martha was able to successfully pass her rehab review and to be accepted into IMC's Acute Rehab program. She is now in room 1218 in the Sorenson Patient Tower. and can see visitors after her "work day ends about 4-4:30 PM. We will need to see how exhausted she is and gage how many visitors she can handle up to about 8PM. It has now been 25 days since she suffered her Aneurysm and the stroke that followed that up when they coiled the artery in order to save her life. We have spent 18 days in ICU and 7 days in rehab preparation and I cannot say enough praise about the staff from top to bottom at the IMC hospital.
Rehab here is very intense for the patients and they will be pushed continually beyond their limits so that they can advance and relearn skills in order to be able to go home in 3 - 6 weeks. Tomorrow ( Friday ), is Martha's 1st day on her new rehab schedule, so I am going to spend the day helping her adjust to the new schedule. When we get closer to moving her home, the training and rehab will be as much for us as it is for her in order to train us how to help her adjust to her new limitations, whatever they turn out to be.
Today in her first Physical rehab session they finally figured out that the blindness she has encompasses is about 60% or if you were to look at the opposite wall side to side and call that a 180 degree view she is seeing only about 75% of the 180 degrees, all of it to the right. So the first thing the Physical Therapist needs to do is to help her align back to center. She leans to the right and stares to the right because in her mind that is straight up at this point.
In about a week after they have a better idea of some of the long term challenges she will face they will have an Occupational Therapist come to the home with some recommendations on what we need to do to make the home suitable for her usage. At that point we might ask for some assistance from some of you to do what we need to do on the home.
Anyway, from where we were on Wednesday morning, 1 hour short of discharge and being sent to a convalescent center, and now back on schedule with what is probably the best rehab center in the Mountain West is a real blessing. We all petitioned the Lord, to bless us with this opportunity, while at the same time promising the Lord we would be happy with whatever was best for her.
This experience has strengthened my testimony of the Love and Personal interest of a kind and loving Heavenly Father who does hear and answer prayers. Again we know there will be challenges, but so far Martha is in remarkably good spirits and is being a real trooper in facing and accepting the situation for what it is.
