Two years ago today I broke my leg, which turned out to be a mixed blessing initiating a chain of events long and challenging, sometimes strange but often educational, and even occasionally surprisingly pleasant. I've gone from essentially bed-ridden and largely incapable, to significantly more mobile and surprisingly functional.
A year ago today I was, as I am today, writing a blog post in the day care center where I do my rehabilitation work. I described myself then as “sanguine about my chances for eventually being able once more to walk, and drive, and cook, and even return to my desk at the office”. It turns out that I was right to be (cautiously) optimistic.
The doctor who officially assessed my handicap level just prior to my release from the hospital told me to prepare mentally and emotionally, and resign myself to the likelihood of being wheelchair-bound for the rest of my life. He appears to have been somewhat too pessimistic: I have returned the rental wheelchair upon which I relied for over a year.
I am now, using a walker, walking smoothly and with relatively little effort. Completely hands-free walking is still limited to only a few steps, and I still have some balance and fine motor control issues, but walking with one hand on a railing or nearby stable surface for support is getting easier and easier for more and more steps each day. Stair climbing practice proceeds apace, and it seems that I can realistically expect to be walking with a cane in the relatively near future. Beyond that it’s a tougher call, but I’m relatively pleased with my progress on the walking front.
With my driver’s license renewal coming up, and the new requirement for a senior driver ability assessment in the offing, I was somewhat concerned. Thanks to Takaoka-san, my house-call physical therapist, and to the endlessly patient, cheerful, inventive, and professional crew of therapists and other staff at the day care/rehab center, I’m now able to get into and out of my car, and drive and park it pretty much anywhere that I want to. I’m quite confident about passing any driving tests that may be imposed, as long as the authorities don’t have a problem with me getting up to the driver’s seat using a walker.
Cooking and related tasks have become feasible, and I’ll be doing more as the time increases during which I can stay standing up and balanced while using both hands for the fetching, chopping, stirring, or whatever. Cooking has moved from the “can I?” to a “how smoothly can I?” area.
As for my paying jobs, I continue to work from home on one or another computer, having gotten a head start on the COVID-19-driven teleworking campaign with my hospitalization around a year before the novel coronavirus became an issue. Using either a portable WiFi router when at rehab or my home internet provider when in the house, I have relatively little trouble with the job, and probably became acclimated to large-scale teleworking much sooner than my colleagues, who have been forced into at least partial teleworking more recently. By the time that COVID-19 is no longer serious enough to demand teleworking and other anti-infection measures, I may actually be physically recovered enough to return to a physical presence in the office. We’ll see whether or when that takes place.
The world has changed considerably in the last two years, particularly in the last year, and so have I. Restrictions on activities imposed by the pandemic have affected me personally less than they have most of my friends and relatives, because my movement and activity had already been severely constrained by the vagaries of my nervous system and musculature. It now seems much more realistic to look forward to actually visiting restaurants and bars and other places that I had erstwhile been wont to frequent.
I have reasonable hope that restrictions on operation—whether those of shops or of my own body--will be lifted before too very much longer. I’m not letting up on my rehab efforts, and a full—or at least sufficient—recovery will, I know, take as long as it will take. I’m hoping that’s less than another two years, or even another year, but I intend to keep up the pace, and maybe even increase it a bit.
I can get down the road by driving now, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t be walking, too.
A year ago today I was, as I am today, writing a blog post in the day care center where I do my rehabilitation work. I described myself then as “sanguine about my chances for eventually being able once more to walk, and drive, and cook, and even return to my desk at the office”. It turns out that I was right to be (cautiously) optimistic.
The doctor who officially assessed my handicap level just prior to my release from the hospital told me to prepare mentally and emotionally, and resign myself to the likelihood of being wheelchair-bound for the rest of my life. He appears to have been somewhat too pessimistic: I have returned the rental wheelchair upon which I relied for over a year.
I am now, using a walker, walking smoothly and with relatively little effort. Completely hands-free walking is still limited to only a few steps, and I still have some balance and fine motor control issues, but walking with one hand on a railing or nearby stable surface for support is getting easier and easier for more and more steps each day. Stair climbing practice proceeds apace, and it seems that I can realistically expect to be walking with a cane in the relatively near future. Beyond that it’s a tougher call, but I’m relatively pleased with my progress on the walking front.
With my driver’s license renewal coming up, and the new requirement for a senior driver ability assessment in the offing, I was somewhat concerned. Thanks to Takaoka-san, my house-call physical therapist, and to the endlessly patient, cheerful, inventive, and professional crew of therapists and other staff at the day care/rehab center, I’m now able to get into and out of my car, and drive and park it pretty much anywhere that I want to. I’m quite confident about passing any driving tests that may be imposed, as long as the authorities don’t have a problem with me getting up to the driver’s seat using a walker.
Cooking and related tasks have become feasible, and I’ll be doing more as the time increases during which I can stay standing up and balanced while using both hands for the fetching, chopping, stirring, or whatever. Cooking has moved from the “can I?” to a “how smoothly can I?” area.
As for my paying jobs, I continue to work from home on one or another computer, having gotten a head start on the COVID-19-driven teleworking campaign with my hospitalization around a year before the novel coronavirus became an issue. Using either a portable WiFi router when at rehab or my home internet provider when in the house, I have relatively little trouble with the job, and probably became acclimated to large-scale teleworking much sooner than my colleagues, who have been forced into at least partial teleworking more recently. By the time that COVID-19 is no longer serious enough to demand teleworking and other anti-infection measures, I may actually be physically recovered enough to return to a physical presence in the office. We’ll see whether or when that takes place.
The world has changed considerably in the last two years, particularly in the last year, and so have I. Restrictions on activities imposed by the pandemic have affected me personally less than they have most of my friends and relatives, because my movement and activity had already been severely constrained by the vagaries of my nervous system and musculature. It now seems much more realistic to look forward to actually visiting restaurants and bars and other places that I had erstwhile been wont to frequent.
I have reasonable hope that restrictions on operation—whether those of shops or of my own body--will be lifted before too very much longer. I’m not letting up on my rehab efforts, and a full—or at least sufficient—recovery will, I know, take as long as it will take. I’m hoping that’s less than another two years, or even another year, but I intend to keep up the pace, and maybe even increase it a bit.
I can get down the road by driving now, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t be walking, too.
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