Monday was one of those days that makes every part of my job seem worthwhile.
About three months ago a woman came to our nursing home after having a stroke. She had absolutely no use of her left arm or leg. Despite her elderly age, she had been living at home and was very active in her community. Her favorite activity was attending the local girls' basketball games.
The stroke also affected her speech and hearing, but not her mind. Didn't touch her mind at all. She was completely aware of everything going on around her from day one.
For the past three months, this woman has been receiving physical, occupational, and speech therapies. She has been motivated from the beginning, and we've been working her as hard as we know how. But for three months, we've struggled.
Progress has been slow. She just wasn't getting any use of her arm or leg back. An occasional muscle contraction here or there, but not enough to help us help her. We've even thought about discharging her, because we weren't sure she was going to make any further improvements.
Not only was therapy slow going, but this woman has had to travel a road to recovery that I can only imagine has been most unpleasant. She has had to depend on everyone else to take care of her. Multiple people to dress, bathe, and take her to the bathroom. After several weeks of difficult transfers, the nurses switched to the bedpan instead of the toilet. Then she got a roommate who, though they were friends prior to living in the nursing home, has been rather...trying. The roommate has enough presence of mind to know what's going on, but enough dementia to be rather confused. She took it upon herself to take our patient under her wing and look after her, which included a constant presence and frequent disturbances of sleep at night.
Remember how I said her hearing was affected? She has a hard time hearing anyone speaking to her. For some reason, she especially cannot hear me, even when I am shouting inches from her ear. This is hard for her, because she either responds incorrectly or has to resort to nodding her head and pretending she heard.
But this lady never complains. Never says anything negative. Her focus is to work hard to improve. And she has a rather funny sense of humor. (After struggling to put a glove on her lifeless hand, she said to me, "Aren't you glad I'm not an octopus?")
Finally, on Monday, after months of doing the same exercises over and over again, and standing in the parallel bars day after day, her hard work paid off.
On Monday, she walked for the first time.
With the walker in front, the physical therapist assistant on one side, me on the other, and the occupational therapist assistant cheering her on, she walked all the way across the room.
When she sat down, she pointed at each one of us and said, "You girls are such an inspiration."
To which we replied, "No, pretty sure you're the inspiration."
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