I Told You…

...it was a busy week for me!

I had all three therapies today. Finishing evaluations and getting started on what I could for OT.

In PT, we evaluated my gait and how I took to stairs. I was so happy that they had two handrails! I gladly held onto them both and took the stairs as I normally, cautiously do. They then wanted me to only use one handrail. So I used it with both hands 🤣 My little loophole! They, of course, corrected me and told me to try practicing on stairs at home with my husband and try to take one step with one foot. Not both feet... if that makes sense?

We worked on so many other eval tasks for the day and one that I remember is they had me walk AND count backward from 100 by 7s. I got to 79 and I was done!

Now to put things into perspective for you. I was a straight A student in high school, took AP classss, and even took classes where I would get college credits. In college I mainly got As with a couple of Bs here and there. So I was SMART. So all of this, not being able to do simple math, is beyond frustrating for me.

OT, she is the sweetest. We didn't do eye exercises today because, well, I had eye surgery two days ago and it still hurts. I plan to ask my doctor next week if eye exercises would even be beneficial or a waste of our time. She said that if he doesn't see a benefit, then we can try again many months from now after my next surgery. If that's the plan 🤷🏼‍♀️

We then went over accessibility tools for the home and what would help me do things at a normal pace. Like cutting vegetables, for example.

Now onto speech. We did some cognitive testing and she said my medical experience is very complex. She hasn't known of any patients that can't remember most things long-term. Yay! I get to be the special cookie. 🍪

She said that she can tell with the testing and with me sharing with her, that I can create wonderful memories but the problem lies within retaining those memories. Pictures are great! But they don't help bring the warm and fuzzies if I can't remember what actually happened in the pictures.

She has mentioned sitting with those close to me and asking them to share with me their memories of events so I can bathe in their memories. Who knows! Their memory might trigger something for me so I can remember bits and pieces.

Another part of my "homework," is to journal every single day. As in, with a paper and pen/pencil. Physically writing something out helps us to remember and process it more. When I finish recapping my awesome day, end with goals for the next day. When the next day comes, write which goals I've achieved and what ones I need to carry into the next day.

Today was certainly a long day and a lot to take in. If you can help, positively, in any way - I'd greatly appreciate hearing wonderful stories from you. Keep sending those pictures :) I love every single one of them!

I appreciate you all.