Standing, moving, thankful

Last week a flurry of activities culminated with everyone telling him he’d make the big move to the 3rd floor inpatient rehabilitation center today. While he still hasn’t moved yet this morning, they told him to expect to be discharged from the 8th floor later today down to the third floor.

On Thursday, Karl’s physical therapist Megan got Karl ready to go to the therapy gym by coaching him to sit up in bed unassisted. He did it! Sliding onto the wheelchair proves to be a bit tricky because his bed mattress is soft and sits higher than the wheelchair. When he moves to the 3rd floor, he’ll probably get a regular mattress which means transferring will be much easier. After Karl was “loaded” onto the wheelchair, he took a trip to the gym where a harness was placed under his rear-end and he was winched up into standing position. For the first time since July 15, Karl stood! While he stood for only 3 minutes, it was a huge accomplishment but quite painful. He said his lower back hurt and if you look at the X-rays below, you’ll understand why. He was pretty tired after that so he went back up to the 8th floor where he tooled around in the wheelchair awhile, harassing the nurses. They were so happy to see him out and about.

On Friday Karl had a Doppler on his legs to make sure there are no blood clots…there aren’t. Then Karl’s occupational therapist took him down to the gym where he worked his arms with various exercises. He played Wii boxing (knocked me down three times) and tennis. What a workout! We also saw his new room on the third floor...it's huge! Later he was visited by Mayo oncologists who talked about doing concentrated radiation along with chemotherapy. We still aren’t sure how that will work, but we know Dr. Yaszemski agreed to allow him to go to inpatient rehab until the incision on his abdomen heals. He may be able to finish his chemo at home! They will be in touch with Karl’s U-M oncologists.

For the last 8 weeks he’s had wonderful care from the nurses and staff on the 8th floor. He’s gotten to know about some of their families and many of them dropped in to check on him, even when he wasn’t their patient. They’ve provided tender care when he was in pain, encouraged him when he had setbacks, and cheered for him when he made progress. And for that, we are all so grateful.

Blessings,

Kerry

Karl is STANDING with Megan, his physical therapist

These are X-rays of the rods and pins holding Karl's spine together. It's no wonder his lower back hurt when he stood!

Some of Karl's nurses. From left is Rebecca, Jeff, Bonnie, Helen and Dave.