On moding the Wheelchair

I better get this one finished before things happen. Of course, then if I do write it, thing won’t happen.

I spent too much of the weekend worrying about whether I’d bought the right wheelchair as it felt a bit small and the left wheel moved even when the brake was set, despite all the effort it took to set it. However, on Monday morning, I went down to the Gym to see the OT to get her opinion on the wheelchair. I noticed that part of the left brake mechanism was overly loose, so I asked her if I might use the Allen keys and wrenches that the gym has. She offered to do it herself, but I said that it was a boy thing. (I have since regretted my sexist words.) Anyway, after some tightening of bolts and nuts, the brake worked properly. 

I also used the opportunity and tools to remove a braking system. This is less alarming than it seems as I had also removed the wheels to which the braking system belonged. These were the small back wheels to be used when using the chair as a transfer chair. As I do not intend to use the chair that way, and as they sometimes prevent the main rear wheels from working on uneven ground, I felt they were less than useless. As removing them was a matter of using a wrench and an Allen key, off they came along with their brakes. Thus the wheelchair is a bit lighter.

My cousin Kristine asked on Facebook what name I had given it. She then surprised me with an emailed suggestion: Mooselangelo, as it represented a Renaissance. I rather like the name as well as the thought behind it. So, I think that is what its name will be.

After a slow morning on Tuesday, I got in a lot of exercise in the afternoon. The replacement physio has started me wearing a compression sock on my left foot which has reduced the swelling to the point that during today’s physio session, I wore a regular shoe on my left foot rather than my orthopaedic sandal. I still have to get use to it.

My IV antibiotics were said to be until May 15th, i.e. today. I had hoped that meant that yesterday was my last day, but no such luck. Furthermore, when the nurse was going about hooking me up for my evening dose, he found that it took too much effort to flush the PICC line with the saline solution. This led to a number of nurses discussing the matter and calling for the duty doctor. They administered a dose of anticoagulant before waiting half an hour and flushing the line again. They finally attached the IV and got the antibiotic flowing. All this had taken the best part of an hour. I asked the doctor if she would be so kind as to inform the people at the General about the issues with the PICC line.

Why? Well, tomorrow I go to the General to meet with Ortho and Infectious Diseases about my ailments. Several people have asked me what expect will happen tomorrow. My stock answer has been that some X-rays will be taken and doctors will look at them and go “Hmm…”. 

After that, I fall into the realm of speculation. What I have been afraid of (and more so with this evenings PICC line issues) is that I have to continue on with the IV antibiotics which will make going home much more tricky. What I hope will happen is that they will decide that I don’t need antibiotics anymore and therefore, they will remove the PICC line. 

Now that I write it, I realize that I sound more concerned with the antibiotic question than with my leg. This is not really the case: it is just that the IV antibiotics seem to be nearly over, whereas the leg is nowhere near healed. I am hoping that the bits of my tibia are now ready to be reassembled in what I hope will be the last major operation. If not, then I hope that there would be a clear time line which would give me the time to get in a quick trick to Vancouver and back.

Or at least, a relatively uncomplicated period of time to spend at home in which to enjoy something like normal life. Of course that is probably too much to hope for.

On shopping for a wheelchair

I will start by clarifying something from my previous post. When I go home, I will have return the wheelchair and the crutches to the Lindsay as they belong to the rehab institute. That is, if I am not at least nominally a resident there, I don’t get to use their technical aids. However, as a car accident victim, the SAAQ will in all likelihood pay for them.

My Occupational Therapist was quite sure that the SAAQ would pay for two wheelchairs: one for use in my home and another for use from my vehicle so I would not have to move a wheelchair up and down two flights of stairs. It was a kind thought, but one which failed to understand my particular transport arrangements. I don’t have “a vehicle” which I regularly use and in which I might store a wheelchair on full time basis. 

She did give me some urls to the two main wheelchair stores in Montreal along with some advice on what to look for. The two main catchwords were “folding” and “manual”. The former should be fairly self-explanatory, but the latter bears explanation. Setting aside electric wheelchairs, a surprising number of wheelchairs are made with four small wheels rather than two large wheels and two small wheels. The four small wheeled chairs are intended to be pushed by another person rather than propelled by the occupant. These are sometimes known as transfer chairs. The other type (two large, two small) are “manual” wheelchairs. I added two other criteria to the list namely lightweight and equipped with a footrest suitable for my left leg which can’t bend as much as it should.

The first store I went to was La Maison André Vigier. This was something of a confrontation of a personal bête noir. I will digress to explain. Way back in the mists of time when I was in my last year of high school, I was on the school Génies en herbe team, e.g. a trivia quiz team. My presence on the team was due to not only my intelligence, but also because I was an Anglo and therefore had a different knowledge base than my francophone teammates. Anyway, we went to Montreal to be filmed for the TV version of the game on Radio-Canada. We lost partly because I was given a question that seemed designed to trip up an anglophone: “Quelle est la rivière qui coule à Londres?” The answer is la Tamise not le Thames. The real downer question was a forty point question to identify a handicapped athlete from Sherbrooke. I hadn’t a clue through all the other players did. Unfortunately, someone on the other team was first to push the buzzer. The answer was André Vigier.

Anyway, I suspect I might have done better at another Maison André Vigier location than the one in Verdun. The store seemed relatively small and the lone employee wasn’t as helpful as she might have been. I had gone with the intention of renting, but when I said it might be as long as six months (a cynical number based on not all that much information), she said it would be better to buy. She gave an example of how much it might cost which seemed not unreasonable. I tried a few combinations of chairs and seat cushions. There was one that met most of my conditions except for the footrest requirements. When I pressed her about possibly getting another footrest for the chair, she acted as if she’d never heard of the like. I was not terribly impressed so I said I would think about it.

I walked with crutches across the street to have lunch at Monsieur Dumpling. Afterwards, I phoned my friendly taxi driver to see if he might drive to a Medicus store on Sherbrooke Street East. He was available so off I went. That store was bigger and had much more knowledgeable staff. I ended up buying a chair that met my requirements and indeed was less expensive than the one I had been looking at chez André Vigier. 

That may explain why I tipped my friendly taxi driver the way I did. Jonas the taxi driver is extremely nice to the point that it is slightly maddening that when he hands you the credit card machine, there is no way of leaving a tip! However, until very recently, he had worked for Transport Adapté and therefore had a lot of handicapped clients. On a previous trip, he had mentioned a widget someone had told him about which could be put in the lock loop in a car door frame and serve as a handle. He hadn’t been able to find one. However, while I was waiting to pay for the wheelchair and its cushion, I noticed that the store had some. So I bought one, making sure it was on a separate bill from the wheelchair and cushion. He was suitably grateful when I surprised him with it back at the Lindsay. (He drove me back from Medicus.)

When I posted a picture of the new wheelchair on Facebook, Margaret made comment about being able to bling it out. This put me in mind of an old Bloom County cartoon. Google being Google, I was able to find it.

On cooking a meal

Mummy drove in today to take me to my home. I started by marinating some chicken, then turned on my computer in order to do some simple yet complicated things to my iPhone. After uploading the pictures onto my computer, I replaced the existing setup on my iPhone with that of its predecessor including a number of Angry Birds games. This involved the iPhone going backwards and forwards as far as updates are concerned. I had been wanting to do this for months.

I then set about cooking up some chicken fajitas for lunch. I had bought the makings on Monday with the intention of them becoming Tuesday’s supper. (We know how that worked out.) They were quite tasty, not only in my opinion but Mummy’s as well. I will confess that had I been more in the game of cooking, I might have made them spicier but I erred on the side of caution. After all, it was the first serious bit of cooking I had done since August.

I got back to the Lindsay a little bit late for my Zoom call with the Psychologist. He was somewhat surprised that the CLSC had bailed on the IV antibiotics as that is apparently fairly basic. It was the only thing holding me back from going home. He also asked if I had thought about organizing a wheelchair. I had to confess that I had been a bit of a not daring to hope mode, so I hadn’t. He made it seem as though as I am very close to going home, which is good news, though a little daunting.

After physio with the replacement Physio, I was greeted by my fourth roommate. He, like Caroline, is back for more rehab. 

On the failure of a plan

I was afraid of this. I’d hadn’t written about it here because I was afraid that what happened would happen. You might call it being afraid to hope

Last week, the OT said that I could go home for a few days this week as the main hindering factor, twice daily IV antibiotics, could be administered by the local CLSC (local health clinic). I was very  cautiously optimistic about this. However, she seemed to be quite certain it could be done. She was still of the same mind when I saw her yesterday morning. Everything seemed green, though later in the day she did ask me which was my local CLSC.

There was a setback to my mood during my physio session when the Physio said she would leaving for her country (Lebanon) because of an illness in the family. It seems that the three and half year old son of her mother’s niece has stage 4 lymphoma. Owing to particular family arrangements, the emotional connection is much closer than it would appear on the surface as the mother’s niece grew up almost as a daughter to the Physio. (If I remember correctly.) I understood her grief and her need to travel. As we were discussing this, St-Michael the Holy Mole came into the gym. She knew that he was a devout believer (as opposed to me the skeptic) and asked him to pray for the child (Elias). The Mole was willing to do so and offered to ask the Brothers of the Holy Cross to offer prayers for Elias at St-Joseph’s Oratory.

Afterwards, the three of us walked outside, me on crutches. It was a first for me to go any significant distance outside. I even walked up some stairs to the Mahatma Gandhi Park. After the physio session, I had the Mole escort me up to the nearby supermarket to buy some food for the following day.

What with one thing and another, I was late starting my day today. I set about packing for the trip. I was about halfway when I realized I needed to visit the gym to get an elastic band for exercising. Partway down the hall, I was greeted by one of my doctors who told me in bad French (he is Vietnamese) that the home stay was off. It seems the CLSC would or could not provide the IV services. 

Crash, tinkle, went my hope.

Various people tried to comfort me. This included the OT who hadn’t known it had been cancelled. It was one of the few times I have regretted being on antidepressants as I wanted to cry but was unable to truly let go and bawl. I definitely tried to despite it being a nice sunny day. 

My mood was further darkened by the arrival of the Victim Impact Statement from New Brunswick. It served as a reminder of just what a horrible day it had been on the 2nd of September and how it has changed my life for the worse.

The one good thing that happened today was that l met my former roommate Caroline in the gym. She’s back for more rehab. She was walking between parallel bars without touching or using mechanical aids.

On resettling in at the Lindsay

One of the weird things about moving back to the Lindsay is the fact that the change in altitude from the General means that spring seems about a week more advanced. The trees are much more in bud. Indeed, some species are starting to put out leaves. Today, I watched a woodchuck pull on the lowest branches of a shrub so it could eat the new leaves at the tips.

The Parents came by yesterday morning for a visit. I gave them some things to go back to the Condo, mostly books and surplus stuffies. 

I was quite optimistic at my first session with the psychologist yesterday. In point of fact, he remarked upon it. However, my energy and optimism levels faded during the physio session in the afternoon. The Physio told me that my fitness level had dropped. Surprise, surprise, I didn’t exercise enough at the General. Also, I’m not getting enough sleep.

Speaking of the latter, an orderly told me yesterday evening, that I would be moving this morning to another room. It is the equivalent of my former, long-time room here, except that it is at the other end of the corridor. It also had a different history having at one time been part of a four bed ward with a permanent wall between the two halves. I must admit, I sort of liked the cosiness of my previous room over all the windows in the current room.

I didn’t have a physio session today so I just did some exercises. I stopped to go put some ice in my water bottle. As I was coming back, I noticed a Quebec travel magazine for the handicapped on a stand. One of the images on the cover was taken on what used to be the train bridge in North Hatley. This was despite the fact that there weren’t any listings for North Hatley in the magazine! However, the sight of North Hatley made me sad. This, in turn, put me off my stride for exercise.

On returning to the Lindsay

The lack of coordination and planning in the healthcare system is mind boggling. I was getting my antibiotics yesterday morning when a man dressed in outdoors clothes and pushing a wheelchair came into my room. He asked my name. He was a driver come to take me to the Lindsay. There were two significant problems. The first was that he hadn’t been told I had my own wheelchair, so bringing one up from his taxi was a waste of time. The second was that I was still hooked up to the IV antibiotic drip and would be for at least another hour. It would have made sense to coordinate my antibiotic session with transport, but the left hand doesn’t seem to know what the right hand is doing in the medical world. As it turned out, it turned out that the driver for another patient on my floor was unavailable so my driver was reassigned.

About ninety minutes later, another driver with a wheelchair came into my room. At that point, I was ready and waiting. So off to the Lindsay. 

Which wasn’t ready and waiting for me. In point of fact, it was essentially closed for lunch. So I waited for the best part of an hour before I could find someone who could find out where I was supposed to be. This proved to be a room on the same floor as before, but the other side of the hall with much less in the way of windows. The later is probably just as well as with the increasing hours of sunlight, it makes it easier to sleep in. The room is a double room but I am currently the only occupant.

I asked an orderly if I might retrieve the belongings I had left here. She came back with my red MEC duffle. I unpacked, noticing that at least a few things were absent. I asked the orderly if she might send some to check if there was another bag, but nothing came of it.

There has been round after round of greeting assorted familiar nurses, orderlies and doctors as well as several debriefings and assessments of my condition that borders on the ridiculous. I was zonked by bedtime yet failed to get to sleep easily, despite a dark and quiet room as well as a sleeping pill.

After this morning’s round of antibiotics, I ask an orderly if I might check in the storage room for my missing items. This proved a ridiculously convoluted affair of asking various people to find the key to the room. Of course once the door to the room had been unlocked, the way proved to be barred to my wheelchair by a parked mobility scooter. I managed to work out a solution namely walking holding onto the scooter and having the orderly woman-handle the wheelchair past it. Once in the room, I found it hard to find a bag with my name on it until I noticed a photocopied label which had an inventory that matched the one attached to my red bag. It did not have my name or any other on it. As a librarian, I found this to be shoddy workmanship. I opened the black garbage bag which proved to have the missing items. One of them was a box Margo had mailed to me. I showed it to the orderly in order to prove that it was indeed my bag. There are times when having a rare last name comes in handy.

After lunch, I put a load of laundry into the washing machine. I then went to a physio session that demonstrated how much ground I had lost at the General from slacking off from exercise. The Physio and I were disappointed. 

On sleep and dreams

I should have written earlier, but I’ve been more than a little tired. First because of insomnia, partly caused by the disruption to the sleep cycle caused by the lengthy antibiotic administrations and partly due to the relative stress of being at the Montreal General. Even after the change to only two doses of antibiotic per day, I was hardly sleeping. Friday night, I eventually asked for a stronger sleeping pill which improved things a lot.

On Thursday, Alice and I went to see Ghostbusters : Frozen Empire. That was a lot of fun, even though Alice hadn’t seen Ghostbusters : Afterlife. I’d thought of going to the Condo with Alice on Friday. I had even discussed it with my friendly taxi driver. However, my near complete lack of sleep on Thursday night meant that I hadn’t the energy to do something so active. Instead, Alice and I bathed in the sun outside the General.

The weekend can best be described as boring. As in the highlight of the weekend was walking with crutches two double lengths of the floor. During one jaunt on crutches, I was greeted by an orderly or nurse who remembered me from September and who was very pleased to see me on my feet again. That was very nice. I compounded my feeling of improvement by mentioning to her that there was an old woman in a wheelchair in the hall who was quietly saying she was cold to no one in particular.

I still don’t know if I am going back to the Lindsay today. Someone said that my antibiotic levels are good, but then there was some confusion as to exactly when someone drew a blood sample on the weekend. I am also somewhat tired of this nonsensical confusion about the antibiotics as well as the lengthy process of administering them. I’d love to just try to snooze through the process. Unfortunately, more often than not, the machine makes a jarring bleep to warn of air bubbles in the tube. Several people have told me that the antibiotic, Vancomycin, has a tendency to cause bubbles on its own.

I am feeling that I am getting better and that I might well progress to more advanced ways of using the crutches to walk once I return to the Lindsay. This optimism is countered by the frustration of being wheelchair bound. Concurrent with that is the fear that I will be permanently stuck with chair.

I sometimes try to relieve the negativity by dreaming up short-term or long-term vacation ideas. I know the first trip I will take once I am able will be to go to Vancouver to see Margo. Going to Sioux Lookout would be next. A more exotic trip idea would be to fly Emirates to Dubai from Toronto so as to go in an Airbus 380. 

Closer to home, I’d love to hire a light plane with pilot at St-Hubert Airport and do a sightseeing trip to North Hatley and back. A brief Google search told me that it is not only possible but might also include me piloting the aircraft at times. That would make my bucket list, though only after I make a significant recovery of my left foot. I discussed this with Alice on Friday. She asked if I would like to do something like that in Sioux Lookout, as she is familiar with the significant local bush flying community. I said that I could relate to that but what would be more fascinating would be to see the familiar landscapes around North Hatley from the air.