My husband and I started to get into our routine, which is the first word in the vocabulary of someone who has suffered a traumatic brain injury. His room on the first floor was not ready yet. Plans were drawn up and we were awaiting the approval of the permits. So we were using the family room as a bedroom. I had purchased an adjustable bed for Tim. This really helped him with his mobility issues. I also purchased a very nice leather recliner. It took a lot of thought process to buy both. The bed and chair needed to be a certain height, since Tim had a problem bending and sitting. The chair could not be rocking and it needed to have arms sturdy enough for him to be able to push off of in order to stand. I took my father in law to the store to test out all the chairs. We did find one that was just perfect. So much so, that my father in law bought one for himself! There was not enough room in the family room for the bed and furniture, so one of the love seats had to go. I slept on the other one. In fact much of our furniture had to be removed and rearranged to make room for my husband to use his wheelchair.
Every morning we got up, me first at 5:30 am, so I could get dressed before Tim. (I still do to this day.) Then I got him up and dressed and off to rehab. We continued this until our routine was established. The next monkey wrench tossed into this mix was me starting back to work. It was now mid July and I had not been to work since February. After I dropped Tim off, I would go into work for a few hours a couple of days just to get used to it again. However, I couldn't do a whole lot yet. Not only did he have to go to therapy, but he had doctor appointments and was still being treated for the ulcer on the back of his ankle. Not to mention the fact that when he was home, he could not be alone. So if I wasn't there, I had to arrange for someone to be there with him. My kids and in laws took turns.
For the first few months home, sleeping in the family room was not always great. Tim would get up several times a night, confused about where he was. Sleeping on the couch was horrendous. (When his bedroom was finally finished, I threw out the couch!) Going to work was not easy. In fact, I really didn't know how I would be able to continue. I tried as best as I could, but it became pretty evident that I could not continue in the position that I held prior to my husband's accident. On the day of training, my boss pulled me aside and said that my co-worker and I were going to switch positions. As good as everyone was to me at work in allowing me to take such an extended leave of absence, my mind was not yet into my job. So I knew this was the right thing to do at this time. My husband still had way to much going on for me to try and devote time to being in charge at work. So I kind of took a back seat there and devoted much of my time to caring for my husband.
I really needed to stick to our established routine. Anything out of the ordinary could potentially cause problems. Not physical, but mental similar to the "meltdowns" we experienced when my husband was still in the hospital. Over stimulation was another problem. We really had to watch that we didn't tire him out or watch too many action packed movies. These would put him over the edge. Lights bothered him too. Just another hazard of a TBI. So our family room needed to be darker that I really preferred.
As happy as we were to have Tim home from the hospital. It opened up a whole new can of worms. But we did make it to September! It had been four months since my husband came home from the hospital. What a learning process for me, for him and the rest of our family. Our garage was cleared to be turned into a bedroom. We were surviving. We had our routine down. What could possibly go wrong!
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