Preparations for coming home

We had a good meeting today, where we agreed with everyone involved that the goal was to get Jo home for Christmas. The actions points were:

1. To get a working female urinal so Jo can use that at night and empty it into a commode.
2. To get the care team to take over looking after Jo four times a day once she is home, this would be;
• Breakfast (Getting up, washing and dressing)
• Lunch
• Afternoon
• Evening (Going to bed)
3. To see if we can get a bed aerator to help Jo sit up and get in and out of bed. This may not be possible with NHS assistance using the sofa bed and I may have to purchase a divan bed base. However there are inflatable products which are cheaper or the same price as a bed base and I may have to purchase one of those.
4. To see about a transfer chair for bathing. Once again this may not be possible with NHS assistance as we have a corner bath. However, I don't see why a sliding seat that sits with two legs in the bath and two out is not possible or available. We will engage with the Stroke Support team on this.
5. To liaise with the above team on physiotherapy sessions. We should get more physiotherapy once Jo is home. Apparently we have 6 months of the Stroke Support team's physiotherapy before we go back to the specialist neurological physiotherapy.

The physiotherapy session also went well, with Jo doing some sit ups and lie downs to assist her in getting in and out of bed by herself. This led to one exercise Jo can do herself while sitting in a chair, putting the right foot under the left one and lifting the left leg that way, which is good exercise for the muscle in her left thigh. During the course of this Jo once again raised her left leg at the knee at her command while lying on her back.

Jo then did several stands, getting better each time and using her left leg more and more. This then led to several steps where Jo also got better at transferring her weight to her left leg when stepping with the right and made some progress in stepping with the left.

Finally Jo did some exercising with the pedal machine. This looks really good, exercising the left leg and encouraging movement in it. The physiotherapist did say they had a walking treadmill at the hospital which they strap you into and it makes you walk. I remember seeing this there and wondering why they didn't use it. Jo too was asking for something like this from day one. Now she is being discharged we may never get to use this. I'll pick up a pedal machine, which the physiotherapist said is good exercise to do before a physiotherapy session, tomorrow.