05 – Rehab Disasters

Dealing with Al and his stroke was more difficult at Health South, even though he was closer to home. As Al’s mind became clearer, his anger grew because he began to realize his physical and mental losses and the things he could no longer do. Albert could not walk on his own and he could not stand without a walker.  He could not use his right arm, and most importantly, when he tried to communicate, he was not understood. 

 As part of Albert’s rehab, he received a walker. This walker was different than any walker I had seen previously. It was tall and had an arm holder that Albert was able to put his right arm in.  This allowed him to stand up. The doctors put a belt around his waist when he was using his walker, and they would walk him down the hallway to rehab. Albert received physical, speech, and occupational therapies Monday-Saturdays.  

 Albert’s nurse put his schedule on the whiteboard in his room every morning, which I requested, so Albert knew what his day would entail.  The speech therapist worked with Albert completing swallow studies as well as trying to get him to pronounce and learn words to increase his vocabulary. The occupational and physical, worked with him to increase his physical and intellectual health. Albert liked the speech therapist the most. I could see this because his eyes would light up when she entered his room and he would cooperate with her. He was able to do speech therapy in the comfort of his room and in his bed.

 Albert did not like physical or occupational therapy because he had to get up and work physically and mentally to get better. He was angry and didn’t want to exert this type of energy. He wanted to lay in the bed and brute over his situation. Albert was very upset that he was not able to go back to work in the accounting field that he previously worked in, angry that he couldn’t go to the restroom by himself, angry that he had to learn to feed himself again, etc. There were so many difficulties, so many hardships that he had to endure and improve.

 Jordan and I would go to school from 7:30 am to 5:00 p.m., and then we would drive to Health South to visit Albert. One day his physical therapist said that Albert got out of bed and erased the physical therapy session that was on his schedule. I said this is not possible because he couldn’t stand or walk on his own. The physical therapist said that he was sure that Albert erased the words. We canceled the session for that day, but scheduled and wrote a new appointment for the next day. We were going to see if Albert had the ability to erase the scheduled therapy session from the whiteboard. 

 The next day the session was not on the whiteboard.  This made me laugh. Albert was smart enough to know what he didn’t want to do. He willed himself to walk to the whiteboard, erase the session, and get back into bed without getting caught.  I laughed again to myself. 

 We addressed this behavior with him and he was angry stating his phrases, “Main Menu” and “I need a break”.  Albert resumed attending physical and occupational therapy but was angry and uncooperative.  Another incident was about to happen.