A brief spell of Physio

At one point during my stay in the first hospital the surgeon had arranged for me to go to the physiotherapy department to start the process of rehab and being able to sit up.  This was quickly stopped when the spinal consultant heard about it as she didn’t want any pressure added to my wound area.  But I had three or four sessions. 

The sessions didn’t go well.  They’d hoist me onto a plinth and then work with me into a sitting position.  I’d only last a few minutes, maybe not even that long before my blood pressure went through the floor.  On a few occasions I was sick.  On a few occasions I passed out only to come around again with a fan blowing cold air in my face.  I kept being told that it would get easier.  That the length of time sitting was increasing.  I don’t think it was, they were just trying to show encouragement.  I’d go back to the ward and the shaking would start.  It would go on for hours.  I’d try and hide it.  I didn’t want people knowing or thinking that my body wouldn’t be able to cope with the pressures of rehab.  My family would usually notice.  I’d try and explain it off as something else.  They had enough to worry about.

On one hand I was gutted when I was told that they had to stop, but on the other I was so relieved as for the time being I didn’t have to think about being sick, or fainting or how my body was managing to cope.

But it meant months of me knowing that rehab was not going to be easy.  Rehab was going to be hard.  Maybe too hard.  Maybe the spinal consultant was right.  Maybe rehab wasn’t for me.  I couldn’t admit that though.  I couldn’t give up. 

People would ask how I was coping and I’d tell them the truth ‘It’s easy to lie in bed.  It’s boring. It’s frustrating. But for the moment this is what’s expected from me’.  I couldn’t tell them, however, that secretly I was worried that I’d not be able to cope with the limited regime planned.  That my body had struggled with what had already been given.  I just had to think about the here and now and for the moment it was easy to lie in a bed.