I am six visits into my leg therapy. Only 30 to go! It seems like I have been doing this FOREVER! Not knocking my OT. She's good at what she does. I do think it's helping a bit. The schedule is what is wearing on me. I go three times a week. It takes up my whole day! Not that I have any pressing activities. I just like my free time, not fretting about being somewhere on a schedule.
The clinic is in Bill-Paying Town. It takes me 45 minutes to drive there. I budget in an extra 15 minutes, because I never know when I might get behind a tractor, or hit every stoplight red. My appointment lasts an hour. Then there's the drive home. So that's about a 3-hour chunk out of the middle of my day. I have to take my meds and eat my oatmeal and banana earlier that I'm accustomed. Wash the dishes earlier. Curtail my innernetting, so blog posts must be done a day ahead of the day ahead I usually write them. Shopping on the way there or home is not convenient, due to cold items on the way there, and my sweatpanted, tightly-wrapped legs on the way home.
So far most (of my six) appointments have been at 1:00. From 10:30 when I start my getting-ready process, my day is tied up until after 3:00. Don't even get me started if I want to shower before an appointment!
Removing the wraps takes 10 minutes per leg. Putting them back on takes 15-20 minutes per leg. There's a sock thingy, then cotton batting, then three wraps, starting with the smallest on the ankle/foot. They each must be taped before applying the next one over it. My shower itself only takes about 10 minutes! I've been doing the unwrap/shower/wrap routine on the days before an appointment. At least the OT agreed to let me remove the wraps for an actual shower.
NOW there's a new wrinkle. OT ordered some velcro wraps, for the lower legs, and the upper legs. They were delivered to the Mansion. Thankfully, this is ONE delivery that FedEx did not mess up. Save for changing the delivery date and time by an extra day and 12-hour window. They came yesterday at 3:50, while I was in town. It's an 8-pound box, about the size of a microwave in a box. I am expected to carry this box into the waiting room and treatment room. That's because they have to be fitted by OT, I can't just open the box and start using them.
That's not easy for Mrs. HM!!! I use my cane, you know. It's hard enough with a cane and my purse and the bag of freshly-washed wraps that I'm returning. So I put the wraps down in the box. I'll leave my purse in T-Hoe. And try to go without my cane. I'll have to take up an extra seat in the waiting room to set the box on. I'd never get it up off the floor, where it would be in the way anyhow.
I'm trying to keep a more positive attitude, but it seems that every week there's something more added to my "duties" in having this therapy.
4 comments:
Time consuming and awkward, but end results will hopefully be worth it. Is The Pony able to come and help with carrying boxes etc?
I hate being somewhere on schedule too, though my "treatments" don't take as much planning and time. I have dentist appointments for measuring and taking a mold and then for fitting a denture or crowns, but I can walk there and back or catch a bus there and walk back home. For my liver scan, which has been rescheduled for mid September I can catch a bus to the city hospital and home again. Easy. After that there will be a doctor appointment at the clinic, a seven minute walk from home, to see what is to be done with the ailing liver. My eye clinic is a longer walk, about 20 minutes, but buses don't go along that stretch of road so the walk is necessary, but I don't go unless I am having vision problems, not a regular thing.
River,
I briefly thought of asking The Pony, but that would add another 20 minutes each way for the pickup and drop off. Besides, I wouldn't want The Pony to have to sit and wait, and waste a couple hours.
Yes, it's a pain to have appointments hanging out there in the future, knowing your day will be disrupted. I dread them. As for this therapy, I can see a difference already. Not sure if it will eventually be enough to please the knee surgeon.
What about one of those lightweight carts that people use for groceries when their transportation is on foot? What the heck, just do like people around her and steal a cart from the Dollar General and park it in your front yard!
Kathy,
There's not room enough in the waiting room for that. Wheelchair people can barely navigate around the rows of chairs, and have to be parked in front of a chair, hindering traffic even more.
At least the Dollar General carts are small. And such a pretty yellow!
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