Balance, biceps, head and wrists

What can you do if you have balance and use your biceps, head, and wrists? If you are a tetraplegic you can put them all together and learn to move from a sitting position to lying down. It will take Greg months to learn each of the moves necessary and gain the strength, but with hard work he will be able to do it.

It is fascinating for me to watch the PT work with Greg on each aspect of the movement. It requires retraining muscles and the brain. The brain wants to engage muscles that don't function and the muscles that do function have to sometimes move in a new way. It was also a little scary watching Greg balance unassisted. I know his PT knows what Greg can do, but I don't know that yet!

The movement goes something like this:  sitting at the edge of the bed, balancing on 2 arms/wrists, swing one arm between the leg, using the head swing hard to maneuver the hip to the side, using the wrist lift the leg with the bicep to the bed. I am sure I left out a step or 2, and this is just the beginning to get 2 legs on the bed, turned and ready to lay down. Wow!

We had dinner together in one of the lounges overlooking the bay. Greg is getting better using a built up fork and the allows for me to eat at the same time and have some conversation. Feels good to have a semblance of normalcy.  We have been working on things we need to do to come home. There is so much and we try to accomplish one thing each day. All I know is that without the help of friends and family getting our house ready we would not be able to return to our home. Folks at Curtis Lumber are putting in a ramp for us, too.

We just moved in July to our new home. It took us 3 years to find and without Greg's knowledge of renovations, I don't think we could have returned there. He will take charge of the renovations. We will need to make an accessible bathroom downstairs with a barrier free shower. We will come home with a hospital bed, shower chair, wheelchair, cough assist machine, and lots of supplies and of course the knowledge to use them all. We are looking forward to coming home......I think we are definitely ready to get out of the hospital!