Today is Thursday, hospital day four and postoperative day three for Ellen. A quick update on things:
Yesterday mom worked with physical therapy in the morning which was a huge feat- she was able to get out of bed with a lot of very hard work but this caused significant pain and tears. She managed to get some rest in the midst of the traffic of nurses, visitors, physical therapist and doctors coming in and out of the room. In the afternoon, my dad Danny was there (as he is every day after school) and Sky came along yesterday, as well. With their help, she got out of bed and walked not once, but twice! She used the techniques she learned from the physical therapist and used a walker; although it took a great deal of effort and some discomfort, she did really well. The first walk was a few feet and the second one was to the door and back (about 10 feet each direction). I wasn’t there to witness either of these outings but heard about it in excited text messages from the three of them! What a great team! After a big day, mom slept well all night long. (I would say she slept like a baby, but as the parent of a baby, those words seem ill fitting to express the fact that she actually slept soundly through the night.)
This morning was a gorgeous morning in San Francisco- big clouds over the ocean and through the bay but golden sunshine lit up the city proper. Mom and I had a mellow breakfast early this morning and then the occupational therapist came by to help her with some equipment and skills to make moving a little easier. Getting in and out of bed remains the hardest part by far. With the occupational therapist, she was able to get out of bed, stand up and walk with her walker a few feet. She can’t (and isn’t allowed to) bend over so they practiced how to get dressed using a grasping device (think of the sort of thing used to pick up trash on the beach- super useful!), practiced how to position herself to help herself sit up and did some trouble shooting as to how to help her leg swing over the side of the bed. As of right now, she needs help with the latter both for getting in and out of bed, but she is making major progress in my opinion. Around late morning after a little dozing, she was ready for another walk and was able to direct me as to how to help support her efforts at getting out of bed. She did an initial short walk and then decided to extend it, to walk to the hallway and look out the big hallway windows at the glorious day. She did great and Lindy, Suni and I were thrilled to witness her making this progress. As she was making her way back to bed, in walked the physical therapist! So they spent a bit more time practicing some transferring skills in and out of seated positions. By the end of that, she was pretty exhausted and in a fair amount of discomfort. As I left, she was going to rest a little and then have some lunch.
We will continue to update you all here on the blog. Your love, support, faith in and encouragement of Ellen are so incredibly appreciated by my dad, my brother, my grandma, me and our families. All of your sentiments- be they comments here, email, phone calls, texts or telepathic messages mean a lot to us and really help all of us right now. We are blessed to know so many thoughtful, supportive friends. Thank you.
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