Thanks for sharing that with us Gareth. I wish you the best in your new profession
I've spent some time in hospitals too. My father's health deteriorated gradually during the last couple decades or so of his life. First were the biopsies that revealed diabetes - he had to inject insulin after that. High blood pressure. Then the parkinson's, and the alzheimer's. Eventually there were the nursing home visits. Finally more hospital visits. He passed away in 1989, about a year after I graduated college. I'd been making regular trips from my home in Pittsburgh, PA back to where he was in the DC area. Needless to say it was not beneficial to the development of my younger siblings, but that's another story ...
I have to admire people who work in the health care field, because I don't think I could bear it.
Thanks again for the good wishes Karen, Holly, Gene, and Jeff
![Smile :)](https://www.summitpost.org/phpBB3/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
and everyone else.
Outside I've been walking with a left leg brace - a piece of molded plastic called an AFO (ankle-foot orthosis), to compensate for weakened ankle & lower leg muscles. I've been thinking a lot about what it will take to ditch that thing, and the crutches. Lately I've mostly been using only one crutch, and consciously making an effort to walk indoors without them at all, doing balance exercises and standing calf raises. Carefully, until the damned halo comes off ...
I think of the wheelchair (a rental) as being a comfortable computer chair while I'm still wearing the halo. After the halo comes off, the wheelchair goes back
My initial plan was to wait a few weeks after being discharged from the hospital to start working again, but sure enough I started back the day after
I started at the adaptive fitness program yesterday that I mentioned earlier - feels good to be working out and sweating again. Every night I attack the therapy putty with my left hand, which seems to help my strength and dexterity. One of the drs. said that the lingering numbness might be due to pinched nerves, but anyway I think that's slowly on the decline.