On some changes

I apologize for having slacked off writing blog posts but I’ve been feeling a little down, partly because things were rather static. Some of that changed today.

A little before lunch, an orderly came by with a wheelchair looking for a Monsieur [X]. I knew of no such person and asked if he had the right room? It turns out he did and thus I had my first inkling that I was about to get a roommate. He arrived around lunchtime with a nurturing woman in tow presumably his significant other. He is Normand [X], a man in his seventies or so who reminds me of our family friend, Jean-Paul F.. I haven’t spoken much with him as for much of the day he has had string of medical visitors, etc.

My regular physio is off on vacation for the next two weeks, so I am now under the care of her replacement. This afternoon was our first session together and she used it partly to form her own evaluation of your humble correspondent. It was interesting in many respects as one of the first things she had me do was to try to put more weight on my left leg than I had been doing previously. Most intriguingly, she had me stand on a contraption consisting of two scales combined in a shallow platform which she placed between two parallel bars. With one foot on each, we could see just how much weight I was putting on either foot, though the left foot was the one that interested us. I had been cleared to put 50% of my weight on my left leg which works out to about 40 some kilos. I don’t know how much I had ever put on it, but I knew it was nowhere near 40 kilos. In fact, the most I achieved was a bit less than 30 kilos, the limiting factors being the soft tissues around my left ankle and knee.

She then asked if I wanted to try a regular walker as opposed to the “high” one I had been using. In my long-winded manner, I said that when I been feeling a bit down last week, I had thought about asking to try using a regular walker but hadn’t. Therefore, I would be quite happy to try the regular one. So she got me one and set it before me between two parallel bars. With some trepidation, I pushed myself up out of the wheelchair and onto the walker. I was going to say that it went like a charm except that it wasn’t magical. I walked fairly well with it to the point that my name has been written on it as it is to be “my” walker for the time being. My left arm is now presenting its protests and a bill for services rendered, viz. it now aches.