Escape velocity and a bumpy re-entry

Home at last after 306 days in hospital

Last Wednesday I was finally discharged after my marathon hospital stay. These last ten months have been a roller coaster with as many incredible highs to balance out the rock bottom lows.

I had become very close to the hospital staff on the unit during my time as we bonded over a wide range of topics that included food, puppies, renovations and creativity. I’m also aware of several staff who bought paint-by-number kits after watching me work on mine.

Still, I was very surprised and incredibly touched, when the unit manager came by my room as I was packing up. She said I couldn’t leave until I came by reception because they had a cake and had prepared a song.

Turns out there were also clusters of green balloons and three cards filled with well-wishes from unit staff, my primary doctor and the hospital rehab team. They sang “Congratulations to you” to the tune of Happy Birthday and stuffed Stefan and I with lemon cake.

As send-offs go, it was pretty extraordinary.

Getting home has been the goal for so long that it’s easy to assume that everything ought to be sunshine and roses now. I wish this was the case, but I still have a long way to go in my rehab. I’d estimate I’m at around 60-70% of where I was before the fracture in terms of overall strength and functionality.

Now that I’m home I have been enrolled into the In-Home Rehabilitation Services program. This is a fairly new provincially funded program that only started last April to bring all the services that one would normally get in one of the outpatient rehab facilities directly into a person’s home. This includes home care, occupational therapists, physiotherapy, dieticians and so on.

So, in addition to adjusting to being at home, I’m having to onboard an entirely new team in days of back-to-back intake meetings. Many of these meetings feature the same detailed questions about my physical health, mental health and the overarching goals that I hope to achieve during the two to three months that I’m part of the program. After that, aside from some funded home care hours, I’ll be back to paying out of pocket for any additional resources I might need.

What’s a commode? This is a commode.

At present, my biggest challenge remains around toileting as I can’t get from the wheelchair down to a regular-height toilet. I’m currently using a commode which allows me to transfer more easily as it’s roughly the same height as the wheelchair. The commode doesn’t fit in our rental’s bathroom, so one of home care’s tasks during the week is to clean it once a day.

Also, as we wait for my new roll-in shower to be finished in our renovated apartment, I’m back to bed baths (aka sponge baths) a couple times a week just as I had for months at the hospital.

While it’s great to be offered these resources by the government, an unexpected sticking point has been our two dogs—Lucy and Lola.

Double trouble

Anyone who has met our girls knows they are two of the most cheerful, friendly pups around. At 15 years old and almost completely deaf, Lola totters about a bit cluelessly these days with the occasional happy tail wag. Four-year-old Lucy will give you an enthusiastic initial greeting, then will just as quickly get bored if she’s not the centre of attention and find a place to chill.

Despite trying to explain that our girls are very friendly and no threat to anyone coming into our space, we’ve been told repeatedly that it’s their policy that pets must be locked up when their staff is here. This is really difficult for me when I’m here alone given I can’t bend over without a lot of pain to lock Lucy’s crate and Lola’s deafness makes it challenging to direct her at all.

I understand that not everyone is comfortable with dogs for a variety of reasons including cultural. My mother was born in Thailand where the dogs that guarded my grandmother’s orchard were just as likely to bite family members as people coming onto the property to steal fruit.

Still, it’s been incredibly frustrating to have our girls treated like criminals through no fault of their own. It’s also hugely ironic to me that they both were welcomed into the hospital to visit me and no one batted an eyelash.

We continue to try to find compatible staff—both for my physical safety and who are comfortable with our puppies—but I anticipate it’s going to take a few weeks to work the kinks out.

Regardless, it is good to be home and slowly getting back to doing the things that I have missed for so long. My plans for this week include practicing digital painting on my new iPad Pro in preparation for starting the final art for the picture book. I still plan to use the bed iPad stand that I used at the hospital as it is a good way for me to simultaneously work and rest out of the wheelchair. I’ve also been puttering about with my plants and doing a bit of cooking for myself. Simply not having the same hospital dinners week after week—Monday: Salmon & Rice Pilaf, Tuesday: Butter Chicken, etc.—has felt like a genuine pleasure and a true taste of freedom.

Cheers to a new chapter!

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