Almost Home

I once joked that there was a reason I was paralyzed, God knew that I wouldn’t be patient enough to stay at rehab long enough to heal correctly. I also joke that if I could have crawled, I would have crawled out, if I could have ran, I would have ran out. Now that I could walk, I was getting ready to walk out. The only trouble was that I had very little endurance. I could only exert myself for a very short time before my oxygen would tank and I would almost pass out. So, I had to be patient and bide my time and continue trying to be a good team player, a good patient.  Even though Wesley Rehab was a great rehab center and they were doing their best, it felt like I was in prison. They controlled what and when I ate, when I slept, what I did during the day and when. Like I said before, rehab was work and I knew that the work wasn’t quite done yet. So even though I hated speech therapy, I knew I needed to get over it and keep focusing on my wellness and physical training.

Shortly after my last blow-up with speech therapy, we had a visit from my case manager; we came up with a plan to get out early, since I was doing so well.  She started making daily visits with me about the final push to go home and what I still had to do. First off, I needed to get the approval of all my therapists and doctors.  So, I sat down with all my therapists to plead my case. First was speech therapy. She didn’t understand why I hated speech as bad as I did, I tried to explain, “I know what you’re doing and that repetition is what my brain needs, but if I have any success on something we immediately switch to something  that is hard and that I suck at; it make me feel stupid, it makes me feel dumb”. For the first time the “dictator” showed cracks in her armor and her eyes started to redden. Reading the room, I knew this was my chance, so I spoke from my heart, “I’m just so tired, I have been fighting for so long and I’m so exhausted, I just need to go home.” She hesitated for a few seconds and then she spoke, “You have been a tough case; you are just a few years older than my husband and I thought to myself this could have happened to him, and it scared me. You have improved so much. You couldn’t even hold yourself up, we had to strap you to your wheelchair so you wouldn’t fall over. Do you remember when you slid down so far that the straps made it hard for you to breath and you started to pass out. You just looked at me and said, ‘Hey I don’t feel very good,’ It took two of us to lift you back up into place so you could breathe correctly.” “Ya, I remember,” I answered. She took a deep breath and said, “I still think you need more time with us, but I agree going home is probably best right now. This will be our last visit for speech therapy, you can use this time for other therapies.” She continued, her eyes almost in tears, she said, “You really have improved so much, but you need to keep working at it.” “I will”, I said, and shook her hand. I grabbed my wheelchair and rolled it towards the hallway, I thought to myself, it worked! Enough of this mushy shit I’m done with speech therapy Hell Ya!! Yeehaw!!! Finally!

One down and two more therapists to go. My original occupational therapist went on vacation, so I had a new guy. They took me down to the basement to meet the new therapist; he was a young athletic guy. We started right away with hand therapy, he gave me a wooden block that had holes for little metal pegs, I had to put 20 or so pegs into the holes in a specific order, and I had 30 seconds to complete it. After a minute he had to take it away because I wanted to finish it. He said the normal time is between 15-20 seconds. Damnit, I didn’t even finish it. It was not looking good, then he brought out the big shoe, Well shit; that didn’t go much better. Then he got out a football. We started playing catch. I could do that and even through a spiral back to him. Soon we switched to a racket ball, we went from normal catching to throwing with one hand and catching with the other. No problem, this was fun, but then he added a second ball. Well, that sucked at first, but I got the hang of it, and soon he had me lifting one leg off the ground while we were playing catch with two balls. One leg and then the other.  I was sweating by the time we got done, what a workout. I had a good time overall. As I was leaving, he looked at me and said he would sign the papers for early dismissal. Ya, two down and only one left my favorite, Michelle, this would be easy…. Not!

For some reason when I brought it up to Michelle, she got kind of mad about it. Like when Yoda got made at Luke for not finishing his training. I don’t know, maybe she thought I might go to the dark side or something. All I knew is I needed to get out of this place while I still could. I was afraid they would find another reason to keep me there even longer. So, I knew I was going to have to be careful with this one. I asked her why? She said something like they do this all the time they let someone go before they are ready and they fall or get hurt and they end back here again. I said, “Oh, I’m not going to hurt myself.” Michelle looked at me and said, “Casey you are stubborn and you will try to do things you’re not ready for, you always have to try one more time.” I thought to myself, wow, this gal knows me. I thought for a second and answered, “Michelle, I know how lucky I am. I almost died a couple of times and it ‘s crazy I’m even here. I have been involved in athletics all my life and I learned to trust my coaches and do it one more time. You’re my coach, I trust you and I feel safe here, that’s why I try it one more time or go a little farther than I should. Because you are here and this is the place for it. I know how fortunate I am, I guarantee you that I will be smart at home. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize that.”  She looked at me, “Okay, maybe you’re right, I’ll think about it,” she said with a smile. CHA-CHING, Gotcha,

 Now only the doctors.

The doctors wanted to run more tests and take more blood. Surprisingly, they were all for it as long as the tests came back good. They told me they had been weening me off some medications and that seemed to be going fine.