Just Another Bump In The Road

One of the legacies of my recent stenosis challenge has been the debilitating nature all the insult. I became conscious following the first surgery I had significant weakness in my left arm. This weakness was so significant that I landed in Rehabilitation for a couple weeks impatient and months outpatient. This weakness took me from a plain where I was totally Independence to a point where I was really dependent on everyone for just about everything I did. I could feed myself and even then I had to go to occupational therapy to figure out swallowing. It has been 18 months. However I worked very hard and those around me have worked hard and sacrificed much so that I could come home to an accessible environment and loving support to assist me in my continued Rehabilitation.

Taking care of a person with a significant disability is a great stress to the home environment. We had the house Home Health workers come in and assist me in my activities of daily living. Everything from getting up in the morning , dressing showering shaving and even pooping. This assistance is not free and many people are fortunate to have some form of insurance policies to cover this but I do not so this is all been out of pocket. Eventually we cut down from everyday assistance to every other day with the help of volunteers like my brother who would come in the morning before going to work get me up and dressed. Little bit by little bit true continued Rehabilitation and strengthening I have been able to get to the point killing myself too bad hands up in the morning do all my shaving stuff and even get myself dressed totally independent ! The only thing I cannot do independently at this point is my toileting. I use a suppository that's inserted and then I am placed on the toilet. I am fortunate enough I have a great Electric lift which is hydraulics and has a sling. I'm placed into the swing the suppository is administered and I'm placed on the toilet. Now the professionals at the hospital and rehab facilities would like to have me using the suppository every day but that's just not functional on many levels.

The cost for home health was killing us and we finally went to having a home health person come in three times a week to do toileting and showers
. This was not ideal but tolerable. So we settled into a routine even getting 3 workers who were reliable and good. Then ourWorld changed once again. When my main health aide had an accident and we had to find a substitute it was discovered that home health aides we're not allowed to administer suppositories. We have been working with these folks for nearly eighteen months and they have always administered the suppository. Without their ability to do this procedure they're of little use to us so we have discontinued their use. Dianne is taking over now very difficult for her with her physical ailments. Plus there is the issue of for yearly trip to California coming up in October. This will take a week and I'll have to figure out something to do over this period.