Who snuck into rehab and swapped yesterday's Bob with today's???!!!

Okay, so I walk into Bob's room around noon today, heart a little heavy in my chest, expecting to see the zombie-like man I left last night. So. There he is, sitting in the bathroom in a wheelchair, with real clothes on—sweats, t-shirt—kinda forgot what he looks like in street clothes since he's been sportin' the hospital chic look for nearly a month now . . . freshly shaven (shoven? hmmmm . . .), combing his now long-ish (relatively speaking) hair in the mirror, barely looks at me as I bend over to kiss him, as though I'm getting in the way of his grooming. Sorry, Fonzie . . .

His OT greets me, says they got a shower in this morning, it went really well—took a long time, Bob interjects—but feels so much better, looks so much better, he does admit. Said it took longer to Saran wrap his incisions and PICC line than it did to actually shower. But he's brighter, more alert in the eyes, voice is clearer, stronger . . . said he'd eaten one of my whole wheat pancakes, an organic nectarine for breakfast, had sessions with both OT and PT already this morning, and was now ready to relax a bit before he ate lunch.

I tell him I'll be out in the lounge with Penny and Jim while he finishes with OT, and will come get him shortly. A few minutes later, he wheels himself out of his room and down to where we were sitting. Yesterday, I was the one doing all the wheeling for him . . .

We sit in the lounge of the rehab unit for a while, chatting, gossiping, shooting the breeze with Penny and Jim. The whole while, Bob is alert and present with the conversation, not nodding off once, as he had all day yesterday. Eventually, we wheel back to his room for lunch: a turkey, avocado, tomato and Swiss cheese sandwich on sprouted bread with mayo, and a pear. He peels the innards out of the sandwich, eats that and the pear, but can't do the bread. Says it looks too heavy . . . after lunch, he still seems so alert and alive, so I ask if he'd like to go for a walk outside, get out of the building and explore the grounds a bit, expecting "no" for the answer. "Yeah, let's do it," he says, instead. I'm telling you, peeps, this is not the man I left last night. Alien abduction, I swear . . .

So the four of us sign the prisoner/patient out and head for the great outdoors. We tool down the sidewalk and a block or so down the road from the facility, Jim pushing the wheelchair, Penny and I trailing behind. We turn around and wheel back up the hill to the campus, continuing around the sidewalks that surround the building. A lovely fall day, beautiful day for simply breathing in the fresh, crisp fall air, alternating between admiring and critiquing the old homes that hug the perimeters of the hospital grounds. By the time we get back, it's almost time for another session of PT. So much for resting between sessions. But when his therapists arrive, Bob is still alert, "with it," ready to go. . . I tell him I'll just wait in his room, I don't need to go to every session he has scheduled (thinking it might just be another painfully unproductive one like yesterday's . . . )

10 or 15 minutes pass when one of the PT's pops back into the room and says, "We need you down in the gym. Bob wants to kick your butt in Wii tennis!" Seriously, WTF is going on???!!! I drop my book and follow her. "You have a Wii here? That is sooo cool! Did Bob tell you I kicked his ass the last time we played Wii tennis? I don't know why he wants to subject himself to the humility again . . . "

So, they set up the game for us, and we play best out of three games. The goal is to get Bob used to being on his feet for longer durations, with multiple movements going on at the same time. He still had the walker to hold onto, but we got through three games, resting between each. A neck-n-neck game, but eventually, Bob slams a good one into the far corner of my court and I can't move my little Wii guy (yes, my wii character was a dude, with a mustache, glasses and sprout of black hair) fast enough to return the serve. He wins. His PTs cheer him on, telling him he was on his feet for over five minutes while playing the game. I congratulate him (Cheater! I hiss under my breath), and we sit for a while as his therapists take notes. He's silent for a minute or so, then turns to me and says, "You didn't let the handicap guy win, did you?" I can't help but laugh. Ummm, no, Bob. Unfortunately, that was my best work—the gimp won, fair and square. . . . he gives me a half-smile.

I stay with him till after 9 p.m., help him to the bathroom and situated back in bed before evening medication time. A little annoyed that it took 15 minutes for a nurse to respond to the call light, when we needed some anti-nausea medication . . . also more than annoyed—pissed—to be precise, when, waiting for his nurse to answer the call light, Bob says to me, "I don't like it when you leave . . . " Why not? I ask, touched by the comment. He tells me that some night nurses have made him walk to the bathroom with his compression wraps (bulky, cumbersome leg-warmer-like wraps that inflate and deflate intermittently, to keep the blood flowing in his legs, to prevent clots) and his orthotic boots on, that kind of stuff . . .

What???!!! I nearly screech—those boots are at least a pound or two a piece, and are clumsy as all hell. The boots would be awkward for an able-bodied person, more so for someone who is weak, groggy from sleep, medications, in need of assistance . . . yes, the head nurse heard an earful from me before I left . . .

Before I make the wrong impression, the care Bob is getting at the acute rehab unit, for the overwhelming majority of the time, is amazing. His nurses and doctors are incredibly attentive, careful, sensitive, but also stress that acute rehab means that they really work hard to build a patient's independence as much as they can, as quickly as they can. And I love, love, love the beautiful multicultural aspect of the unit–his nurses, aides, doctors, therapists come from all over the globe. There's a map on the wall in the hallway asking, "Where are you from?" Pictures of the staff, with pins pointing to Ethiopia. Somalia. Philippines. England. West Africa. Guyana. India. New Zealand. All over the US . . . Makes me miss living in "the city" so much . . .

Unlike the hospital, however, with its constant, frenetic activity, the acute rehab unit is eerily quiet, especially after 5 p.m. Patient count is low, and the patients here tend to be higher functioning, which likely means the staff ratio is also lower. But, I told the head nurse that there are a lot of things Bob still can't do for himself, and waiting 15 minutes for someone to answer his call light is too long. And to make him walk to the bathroom with extra baggage on his feet, when one leg is limited in mobility and the other is still very weak just can't happen . . . I was nice, peeps. Firm, respectful, but nice. Likewise, his nurse was attentive, courteous and said she'd make sure to talk to the rest of the staff working with Bob about my concerns . . . she was extremely apologetic, said she'd make the rest of the staff aware of the issues, that there's no excuse for having Bob walk with the boots and wraps on. None at all. . .

As astounded as I am with the quantum leap Bob made, seemingly overnight, I'm not foolish enough to believe that this is how it's will be every day. Live and learn, huh? This was a good day, an awesome day, and I'm still in blissful wonder of it, so deeply grateful for it. But the day also exhausted him. By his last PT session at 3:45 this afternoon, he was spent. His energy level went from amazing! to I can barely keep myself awake long enough to finish the 1/2 hour session . . . but it did give me hope that maybe acute therapy just might be okay, after all. Then again, that's just today. Talk to me tomorrow . . .

Everyone keeps telling us that so many patients enter the facility in tough shape, but leave light years ahead of where they began. And two weeks is simply the average. If he's not ready to go home by then, they won't kick him out. They'll keep him as long as needed, till everyone, us included, feels he's safe and ready to come home.

As amazed and elated as I am with today's turn-about, my newest worry is the strange, flat affect that's washed over Bob, post-surgery. . . so little emotion displayed, no smiles, no joking, dead-pan expressions . . . not even when kicking my ass in Wii tennis, when normally he'd be gloating like nobody's business . . . I saw a punching bag in the corner of the PT gym yesterday. I'm thinking maybe some boxing therapy might be in order . . .

In spite of the horrific events I've witnessed Bob dragged through over the past year, there is no way I can begin to comprehend the mental anguish he's facing now that the surgery is "behind him" and he's supposed to be "moving forward . . . " none of us is in any position at all to empathize, to relate, begin to understand even one iota of the hell he's been through and continues to plod through. Anything said, is so trite, so absurd, so ridiculous, even . . .

JM & J . . . so much could be said about that whole concept, but it's late and I know I'll be talking in circles for hours on end if I start . . . tomorrow's another day, another opportunity for more progress, more healing, more forward motion . . . xxoo!