Well at this point in time what more do I have to say. My husband has been in the hospital for more than 2 months. I had a son in grad school, one in college and my daughter, a junior in high school still at home with me. I had a household to care for, a job on hold, bills piling up and still going to the hospital every day, from sun up to sun down. I couldn’t help worrying about what would happen next. However, I couldn’t help hearing what my husband prior to the accident would say, quit your whining and do what you have to do. So I did. I sorted the different worries in my brain and tried to take care of each one to the best of my ability. Each worry suffered a bit as my main priority was still my husband.
He was at the point of having physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy daily. He was relearning many things that we all take for granted. It was grueling at times. He would work day in and day out and I would pay close attention to what they were teaching him, knowing that he would be coming home soon and I had to be able to care for him. The more I could learn the better and easier it would be. Two peas in a pod we were!
Some days he could not participate because he was in such great pain. Pain I couldn’t even imagine he was feeling. Often they would ask him on a scale of 1 to 10 how was his pain. He could not verbalize because he did not understand what they were asking. So with the help of his therapists, we developed a picture chart so he could point to how he was feeling. It usually was not good. The doctors decided to bring in pain specialists to help him. They first had to determine what kind of pain he was having and where it was. My husband had so many broken bones from his head to his toes. Another problem he had was nerve damage. He also had heterotrophic ossifications in his hip, which is bone growing in muscle and can also be very painful. The pain doctors concocted a group of medications to take to help take the edge off but also allow him to function, which was also part of the problem. You can take medication to ward off pain, but then it makes you dopey. When he got dopey, he could not participate in therapy because all he wanted to do was sleep. I recall many a meeting with these doctors, then all his therapists and nurses from his unit, all trying to find a solution. We did for a while. It was good enough to get him through the day and help him sleep at night.
He was also suffering a lot of frustration. His words would get jumbled up at times and we were expected to know what he wanted. The poor man was expected to perform every day, get his thoughts together, handle pain, try to recognize people and then in accordance with his nursing unit, it was announced that he now was expected to take a shower every other day! I thought holy cow, this is going to be good. Of course they sent in the tiniest nurse possible to go with him to shower. Mind you now, he could not yet sit up at a 90 degree angle. So they devised a way to put him in a shower gurney, prop his leg which he could not bend, angle him at specific degree and get him into the shower. I thought, good luck, when they took him away. By golly they were able to shower him, but the poor nurse came back and reported that they both were now showered and clean. They were not as anxious to repeat this as often as originally stated. Even when he was finally able to sit in a shower chair, it was very difficult. Again, we seemed to put a glitch in the fine-tuned rehab unit. What was the usual; my husband seemed to continue to deviate from it. He was really giving them a run for their money!
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