bobanddenisewanderlust

The days mostly run together through this time, so again, I will put them all together. Nothing happened on the weekend about getting me moved to acute rehab, as the insurance was closed for the weekend. So I continued to sit in Banner Boswell Hospital.

Below is a picture of my cast.

I still had PT and OT each day, as both were required to be transferred to acute rehab. I definitely progressed. I spent most of the day up in a chair. Bob visited every day I was in the hospital, bringing me my decaf coffee and other items. I read a lot of books!

On Monday morning I called Cobalt, again, and told the admission gal that she needed to send the authorization request to Orthonet.  The nurse read me the CM notes in the chart and they all said that the auth request was going to United Health Care. The nurse, Luz, called Diane the TCS, and told her what I was saying, again!

Evidently, it finally got through to them, that they were sending the request to the wrong place! Tuesday morning, the CM came to me and said I would be leaving for Cobalt Acute Rehab Hospital. I was picked up around 2 and transferred via wheelchair transport. This was one week after surgery! I had paid my deductible, so the hospital, since they had me under observation, has to eat the cost. If not. we will appeal, as it was their fault I was still there!

I arrived and settled in. The nurse checked me in, and per my request, found me a recliner to sit in during the day. My room was huge. It was the size of two hospital rooms. There were several bad things about this. The TV was on the wall across the room and was small, so it was hard to see. The second floor wing that I was on, was originally built as a Memory Care Unit. There was a sleeping room for staff connected and a big window in the corner with no curtain, so for privacy, and to keep the light out at night, I had to have the big hospital curtain pulled. One night, one of the staff decided to watch TV in the room, and the light woke me up. I called the nurse, and he looked and realized what had happened. He turned off the lights and I did not have that problem again!

The staff took me via wheelchair for my meals to the cafeteria. The food was mostly pretty decent, but they had too much beef. I guess to build us up…. many nights Bob would have dinner with me. MaryAnne and Donna came over several afternoons and we played Maj. That was really wonderful!

I had PT and OT 3x a day. I had to hop, using a walker, 80 ft. around the room. I could do about 50 ft. with out sitting down, which was pretty good! I did a lot of work in the parallel bars.  PT was 2x a day and OT was 1x.  The first OT was seeing how well I did taking a shower. Yahoo! First shower in over a week! I was so happy! It really is the little things in life…the other therapists said that Pauline is always the most popular person, since she does the showers the first day!

PT was hard work. OT was much more fun. Some of the time, the OT was a group session. One day we played balloon badminton with a racket and a net. They lined us up in wheelchairs, four, on each side of the net and batted the balloon back and forth.  We hooped and hollered and everyone had a great time. It was also a great way to meet other patients.

Another OT session, I had to stand, in the walker, on my good leg and place playing cards up on a board, matching the cards that were there. Another time I had to stand and do a puzzle, on the table. Another time we were just batting a balloon back and forth. The gal next to me hit it to me. I could barely reach and accidently hit it up. It hit the vent and  popped. It startled all of us, and the OT was afraid someone was going to have a heart attack. We were all okay and laughing!

Bob brought the dogs over one day! Roxie is an expert in the elevator, but this was Koda’s first time. She was pretty freaked out. At least she did not pee in the elevator! She crouched down close to the floor to steady herself. Then she crouch walked out of the building when they left!

Bob told them to find me, so they checked every room until they arrived near the end of the hall where my room was… then they were excited. Bob let them loose in the room with the door closed. They each jumped up in my lap. Then they would sniff, the up in my lap again. Finally, they were ready to go, so they sat in front of Bob. Bob asked them if they were ready to go, and Roxie barked one time! It was a hoot, she headed to the door…  

Above is Koda in my lap. Bob did not get a pic of Roxie…

As I progressed, I was given more” privileges’”. (You would think I was in jail!) First, Bob was allowed to watch me transfer, without anyone else present. Then I was allowed to transfer from the bed to the toilet. Then I was allowed to transfer from wheelchair to the recliner, then wheelchair to bed ( except at night, they wanted someone there for safety if I needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I was okay with that.) I had to hop during the transfers, using the walker. Once I could transfer, then I was able to wheel myself down to the cafeteria by myself.

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