Kevin’s folks let us borrow Nanny’s (Kevin’s now deceased grandmother) walker. And it didn’t take long for him to try it out.
He walked up and down our hallway twice, then around our house once before he pooped out. He was sweating profusely, but he did it. He almost lost his balance once when he turned around to go the other way, but the wall was behind him so it helped him regain his balance.
I followed closely behind him with his wheelchair in case he needed to take a break. (I needed to point that out so you didn’t think I just wanted to BE in the picture. LOL).
Though he took it slow, I worried. He practiced both on carpet and on our tile and I worried he would lose his footing. Though he was wearing shoes, his feet dragged and it was difficult for him to pick his feet up. But considering it’s been eight weeks (and that’s eight weeks TODAY, as a matter of fact), since the accident and he’s already back on his feet even after three major surgeries to reconstruct his pelvis, the man is doing remarkably well.
He’s also doing leg exercises in bed that the physical therapist showed him to help him strengthen his leg muscles. He plans on walking twice a day for a while and when he gets stronger and more stable, I’ll likely take him somewhere (like the mall, or Wal-Mart – somewhere where there’s a lot of maneuver room) so he can practice even more.
I don’t know if you can see it in the picture or not, but this walker has a seat. This means, when we take this on vacation with us and he starts getting tired of walking, he can sit on the seat and I can use it as a wheelchair.
Talk about killing two birds with one stone! If it all works out like I hope it does, we won’t even have to worry about taking his wheelchair on vacation with us AT ALL!!
Praise God!!!
We also made a trip up to his family doctor today so they could draw blood and check his levels (he’s on blood thinner). Since he’s on blood thinner for preventative measures, they wanted his levels to be in the 2 to 3 range – it ended up being 3.1. The doctor wasn’t too concerned about this. Since Fridays are the day he only takes half a Coumadin, (he takes 5 mg every day except on Fridays when he takes 2.5 mg), he just figured he had built up enough of the drug in his system at that point and taking half of a pill would make it drop into the correct range.
He’ll go back in two weeks to get it checked again. He’s been stable for a month now, so they aren’t looking for it to change any time soon as long as we stay the course.
Kevin is resting in bed now. He plans on getting back into his chair so we can all go and pick Jazz up from Band class in about an hour. Then we’ll go for ice cream. Though he’s been taking it easy, we’re trying to ease him back into a “normal” routine. He can’t stand to stay in his bed, in his chair, or even at home for very long before he starts feeling antsy.
I’m not surprised. I knew we would reach a point where he would start feeling this way. He was such an active man before the accident, I really don’t expect his injuries to hold him back for very much longer.
And as you can see, they aren’t!
Write From Karen 