Blowing this pop stand?

I had an overnight visit at my own house on the weekend -- what a treat after four weeks locked up in this hospital! Just driving down Dundas Street with my neighbours and my mom felt like an exotic excursion. It was great to be home, surrounded by my things. Getting into the house was tricky. I had practised with the physiotherapist to get myself up steps, but unfortunately we didn't practise what to do when you get to the top step and the railing runs out. I had to have somebody lift my legs up for me. Similarly, I managed to get down into my basement where my office and a bathroom are, but going up again got almost impossible when I got to the top step -- again, my brother had to push my feet up for me.

I needed my mom to do things like cooking and dishes, but I think I could manage a little of that with help. I could walk around the house with a walker, or by grabbing furniture and countertops. And I had a very good sleep on my living room couch. Sleeping in the hospital has been an ordeal, because so many of my roommates have been snorers. My current roommate, a young mother of two who is very ill, doesn't snore, but her husband sleeps on a cot beside her bed at night, and he snores. They're lovely people and very kind to me -- extremely religious; their church friends regularly surround my bed and pray for me. I'm sure the praying won't kill me, but I could do without the noise.

So, I returned to the hospital last night determined that I would simply check myself out and wait at home for the bed in the rehab hospital. It's a big gamble, because as much as I hate being in the hospital, it's a pleasant place with excellent care and terrific nurses, and I feel very safe here. I will feel much more precarious at home. Still, when I talked to the social worker about it this morning, she mentioned that I may be not just weeks away but possibly months away from getting a bed at Bridgepoint, the only place that has agreed to take me. Their waiting list is long.

I certainly can't see languishing in this hospital for weeks and months. So I've put in a request with my doctor to check myself out, possibly as early as Wednesday. I believe I'm prepared to live mostly on my main floor. I have to purchase a couple of items like an extra toilet extension and another walker, and I've yet to find out how much personal home care I can get. My hope is that a support worker can get me into the basement every couple of days to take a shower.

Mom is staying with me until Thursday, when she'll return to Kitchener, and then Matt will arrive to look after me. He leaves on the 16th. After that, it's poor Mom again, until I get confident enough to stay alone, or I organize enough friends to take turns spending a few hours with me.

My brother is horrified that I'll fall or get caught in a fire without working legs. I'm thinking seriously of starting a search for an apartment that's all on one floor, possibly even a retirement residence.

Pollyanna moments:

• On Saturday night, even though it meant manoeuvring me out of and into my house again, I took my brothers and their families, my mother and Diane out to dinner at a local roadhouse my neighbours and I frequent. It was great to feel like I was doing something normal! Even if I was in a wheelchair again. Of course, I couldn't eat much and had to watch them put away my favourite souvlaki dinner while I satisfied myself with a small Greek salad and a few forkfuls of mashed potatoes and gravy. But it was worth it to get out.
  
• The weather has been amazing -- no snow for anybody to shovel, or to get in my way when I'm trying to enter my house. This may change on Wednesday, though.
• I definitely feel stronger every day and I'm moving about more easily, compared to the sack of potatoes I was in the first couple of weeks I was here. My appetite is better, notwithstanding that the paralyzed vocal cord prevents me from eating much (it took me an hour and 20 minutes to get through a small bowl of shredded wheat on Sunday morning). And the domperidone seems to have quelled the reflux and vomiting. The back pain is the biggest problem, aside from not being able to walk. But that's what drugs are for...