Friday, 20 November 2009

A few steps in the right direction…

… Jo finally seemed to be making these with today’s physiotherapy session. The physiotherapists began in the summer room, at the back of the house, getting Jo to stand using the zimmer frame for support. With an ankle brace and new, velcro-fastening, shoes Jo was able to accomplish this quite easily.

The physiotherapists then coaxed Jo to walk out of the summer room, turn left and left again and walk to the front door. The first left turn saw increased muscle spasticity as Jo had to concentrate on two things, walking and changing direction and so she became anxious. A lot of coaxing saw her through the two turns and then Jo made rapid progress to the front door.

At the front door she sat down and was then wheeled back to the door of the front room, whereupon she stood again and walked back to her chair and sat down with a fairly smooth step and turn.

The whole time Jo was lifting her left foot clear of the floor and placing it herself. She need reminding to prepare herself for the next step, straightening her leg and shifting the weight but there was no physical assistance from either of the two physiotherapists.

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Different strokes...

It has been nearly seven years since Jo suffered a "controlled" stroke whilst undergoing brain surgery to clip the blood vessel that had caused a subarachnoid haemorrhage in 2000. Sadly two successive coilings did not occlude the bleed and so Jo had a craniotomy in August 2008. During surgery the surgeon discovered the coiling had penetrated the rear of the aneurysm, occasioning emergency repair procedures. Consequentially they spent one and a half hours longer in surgery than expected, leading to the right half of Jo's brain forgetting it has to look after the left side of her world.