Life lurches on as a denizen of Old Fart Farms.



I’m not the youngest person here by any means, but I may be the
feistiest. OT is occupational therapy, PT is physical therapy. I
wondered how OT might pertain to me since I’m retired. Turns out it’s
about learning to do everyday things under new constraints. I guess
they figure that older people, and particularly older single people
who live alone, can find that to be somewhere between challenging and
overwhelming.



I figure there’s no point in killing myself to be up in the morning
when I don’t know when they’ll show up other than it’ll be a lot
earlier than I’d like. The OT gal shows up first. She’s there to
help me get out of bed, get cleaned up, get dressed and off to
breakfast. I mentioned that I’d done that by myself yesterday.

“Oh?” I think she disbelieved me. Thing is, the more I let them help
me, the longer It’ll be before I’m regarded as “ready to leave”. So
I grabbed the side rail of the bed with my left hand, rolled out and
landed my butt in the wheelchair. She was only halfway to me when
I’d completed the maneuver. “You’re not supposed to do that without
help!” “I thought that was the whole idea!” “Well, yes, but … well,
you obviously have that under control! Shall we start getting you
cleaned up for the day?” “How about I do that, you can watch if you
like.”



I did. She watched. I was tempted to ask to see the clipboard upon
which she was busily scribbling to see if she was making drawings …
but I decided to skip it. I had to zing in and out of the bathroom a
few times to get stuff. At one point I was trying to get my undies on
with “Jack”. “Jack” is one of those grabber dealies they call a
“reacher”. When they told me that, I immediately named it “Jack”
after “Jack Reacher”, the main character in a series of novels. Since
my right leg is constrained to be straight, my arms aren’t quite long
enough. She showed me a neat trick: grab the leg hole opposite the
one being aimed at and then let gravity help rather than hinder. That
worked great! That’s all the help I would accept.



Hokay, all that done, I said the next stop would be “coffee, right?”
I said that as I was rolling out the door. Yep, coffee and breakfast
it was; the PT lady would come and get me after that.



And so she did. New one today, Kristin is on vaca. OK, first thing
we’re gonna do is 3 sets of 25 reps on “the rickshaw”. That’s a
device comprised of levers with weights. From a seated position, one
presses down on the levers to lift the weights. She had 17.5 lb on
each lever today.

rickshaw.jpg

She went off to do something. When she got back she asked if I was
ready to do the second set. I told her I’d already done all three
sets. She looked at me a bit quizzically. She looked at the guy
next to me. He just nodded his head. Oooo- kayyy! Next, we’re
going to hop with a walker, two laps around the area. One lap is
about 20 yards. She put a lifting strap on me, grabbed it with one
hand to catch me if I fell, and invited me to proceed. So I did. In
this exercise, one sets the walker down while standing on the good
leg, then suspends the body on the walker by pushing down with arms
while hopping the leg ahead. When foot is planted, lift walker and
move it forward to new position , set it down, hop again, continue.
Seems to me to be an absurdly inefficient means of locomotion, but
nobody asked me – so away we went.



After one lap, she said she often has to encourage people to try to go
a little faster, but I’m the first one she’s ever had to ask to slow
down. She said, “lets rest for a minute, then do one more lap.” I
smiled and said, “let’s go! I’ll try not to go too fast” and I took
off. She scurried to catch up.



She was gonna have me do 10 minutes on the Nustep TRS4000 recumbent
cross-trainer (which I purely hate) but it was busy.

nu-step.jpg

So she suggested that we return to my room, with me propelling the
wheelchair for as far as I could go. I could have rest stops.
Ooo-kay!



I din’t take no steenkin’ rest stops. When we got to the corner,
which is maybe 2/3 of the way, she looked at me as she walked
alongside. “You’re going to try to do the whole distance, aren’t
you!” “Yep!” “You are a very determined man!” “Yep!” I went
the whole distance.



Now the doc is thinking about surgery again. Maybe he had some
gambling losses or bought a new Porsche, who knows? He said we’d
schedule it for Wednesday pending an exam and xrays on Tuesday; it’s
a lot easier to cancel surgery than it is to schedule it. That does
make sense.

Don Foreman

Karl Townsend wrote:



Life lurches on as a denizen of Old Fart Farms.



I’m not the youngest person here by any means, but I may be the
feistiest. OT is occupational therapy, PT is physical therapy. I
wondered how OT might pertain to me since I’m retired. Turns out it’s
about learning to do everyday things under new constraints. I guess
they figure that older people, and particularly older single people
who live alone, can find that to be somewhere between challenging and
overwhelming.



I figure there’s no point in killing myself to be up in the morning
when I don’t know when they’ll show up other than it’ll be a lot
earlier than I’d like. The OT gal shows up first. She’s there to
help me get out of bed, get cleaned up, get dressed and off to
breakfast. I mentioned that I’d done that by myself yesterday.

“Oh?” I think she disbelieved me. Thing is, the more I let them help
me, the longer It’ll be before I’m regarded as “ready to leave”. So
I grabbed the side rail of the bed with my left hand, rolled out and
landed my butt in the wheelchair. She was only halfway to me when
I’d completed the maneuver. “You’re not supposed to do that without
help!” “I thought that was the whole idea!” “Well, yes, but … well,
you obviously have that under control! Shall we start getting you
cleaned up for the day?” “How about I do that, you can watch if you
like.”



I did. She watched. I was tempted to ask to see the clipboard upon
which she was busily scribbling to see if she was making drawings …
but I decided to skip it. I had to zing in and out of the bathroom a
few times to get stuff. At one point I was trying to get my undies on
with “Jack”. “Jack” is one of those grabber dealies they call a
“reacher”. When they told me that, I immediately named it “Jack”
after “Jack Reacher”, the main character in a series of novels. Since
my right leg is constrained to be straight, my arms aren’t quite long
enough. She showed me a neat trick: grab the leg hole opposite the
one being aimed at and then let gravity help rather than hinder. That
worked great! That’s all the help I would accept.



Hokay, all that done, I said the next stop would be “coffee, right?”
I said that as I was rolling out the door. Yep, coffee and breakfast
it was; the PT lady would come and get me after that.



And so she did. New one today, Kristin is on vaca. OK, first thing
we’re gonna do is 3 sets of 25 reps on “the rickshaw”. That’s a
device comprised of levers with weights. From a seated position, one
presses down on the levers to lift the weights. She had 17.5 lb on
each lever today.

rickshaw.jpg

She went off to do something. When she got back she asked if I was
ready to do the second set. I told her I’d already done all three
sets. She looked at me a bit quizzically. She looked at the guy
next to me. He just nodded his head. Oooo- kayyy! Next, we’re
going to hop with a walker, two laps around the area. One lap is
about 20 yards. She put a lifting strap on me, grabbed it with one
hand to catch me if I fell, and invited me to proceed. So I did. In
this exercise, one sets the walker down while standing on the good
leg, then suspends the body on the walker by pushing down with arms
while hopping the leg ahead. When foot is planted, lift walker and
move it forward to new position , set it down, hop again, continue.
Seems to me to be an absurdly inefficient means of locomotion, but
nobody asked me – so away we went.



After one lap, she said she often has to encourage people to try to go
a little faster, but I’m the first one she’s ever had to ask to slow
down. She said, “lets rest for a minute, then do one more lap.” I
smiled and said, “let’s go! I’ll try not to go too fast” and I took
off. She scurried to catch up.



She was gonna have me do 10 minutes on the Nustep TRS4000 recumbent
cross-trainer (which I purely hate) but it was busy.

nu-step.jpg

So she suggested that we return to my room, with me propelling the
wheelchair for as far as I could go. I could have rest stops.
Ooo-kay!



I din’t take no steenkin’ rest stops. When we got to the corner,
which is maybe 2/3 of the way, she looked at me as she walked
alongside. “You’re going to try to do the whole distance, aren’t
you!” “Yep!” “You are a very determined man!” “Yep!” I went
the whole distance.



Now the doc is thinking about surgery again. Maybe he had some
gambling losses or bought a new Porsche, who knows? He said we’d
schedule it for Wednesday pending an exam and xrays on Tuesday; it’s
a lot easier to cancel surgery than it is to schedule it. That does
make sense.

Don Foreman


Well done, Don! Keep up the good work and do it at your pace, not
theirs.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

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This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com

On 28-Jun-14 5:42 PM, Karl Townsend wrote:


Life lurches on as a denizen of Old Fart Farms.



I’m not the youngest person here by any means, but I may be the
feistiest. OT is occupational therapy, PT is physical therapy. I
wondered how OT might pertain to me since I’m retired. Turns out it’s
about learning to do everyday things under new constraints. I guess
they figure that older people, and particularly older single people
who live alone, can find that to be somewhere between challenging and
overwhelming.



I figure there’s no point in killing myself to be up in the morning
when I don’t know when they’ll show up other than it’ll be a lot
earlier than I’d like. The OT gal shows up first. She’s there to
help me get out of bed, get cleaned up, get dressed and off to
breakfast. I mentioned that I’d done that by myself yesterday.

“Oh?” I think she disbelieved me. Thing is, the more I let them help
me, the longer It’ll be before I’m regarded as “ready to leave”. So
I grabbed the side rail of the bed with my left hand, rolled out and
landed my butt in the wheelchair. She was only halfway to me when
I’d completed the maneuver. “You’re not supposed to do that without
help!” “I thought that was the whole idea!” “Well, yes, but … well,
you obviously have that under control! Shall we start getting you
cleaned up for the day?” “How about I do that, you can watch if you
like.”



I did. She watched. I was tempted to ask to see the clipboard upon
which she was busily scribbling to see if she was making drawings …
but I decided to skip it. I had to zing in and out of the bathroom a
few times to get stuff. At one point I was trying to get my undies on
with “Jack”. “Jack” is one of those grabber dealies they call a
“reacher”. When they told me that, I immediately named it “Jack”
after “Jack Reacher”, the main character in a series of novels. Since
my right leg is constrained to be straight, my arms aren’t quite long
enough. She showed me a neat trick: grab the leg hole opposite the
one being aimed at and then let gravity help rather than hinder. That
worked great! That’s all the help I would accept.



Hokay, all that done, I said the next stop would be “coffee, right?”
I said that as I was rolling out the door. Yep, coffee and breakfast
it was; the PT lady would come and get me after that.



And so she did. New one today, Kristin is on vaca. OK, first thing
we’re gonna do is 3 sets of 25 reps on “the rickshaw”. That’s a
device comprised of levers with weights. From a seated position, one
presses down on the levers to lift the weights. She had 17.5 lb on
each lever today.

rickshaw.jpg

She went off to do something. When she got back she asked if I was
ready to do the second set. I told her I’d already done all three
sets. She looked at me a bit quizzically. She looked at the guy
next to me. He just nodded his head. Oooo- kayyy! Next, we’re
going to hop with a walker, two laps around the area. One lap is
about 20 yards. She put a lifting strap on me, grabbed it with one
hand to catch me if I fell, and invited me to proceed. So I did. In
this exercise, one sets the walker down while standing on the good
leg, then suspends the body on the walker by pushing down with arms
while hopping the leg ahead. When foot is planted, lift walker and
move it forward to new position , set it down, hop again, continue.
Seems to me to be an absurdly inefficient means of locomotion, but
nobody asked me – so away we went.



After one lap, she said she often has to encourage people to try to go
a little faster, but I’m the first one she’s ever had to ask to slow
down. She said, “lets rest for a minute, then do one more lap.” I
smiled and said, “let’s go! I’ll try not to go too fast” and I took
off. She scurried to catch up.



She was gonna have me do 10 minutes on the Nustep TRS4000 recumbent
cross-trainer (which I purely hate) but it was busy.

nu-step.jpg

So she suggested that we return to my room, with me propelling the
wheelchair for as far as I could go. I could have rest stops.
Ooo-kay!



I din’t take no steenkin’ rest stops. When we got to the corner,
which is maybe 2/3 of the way, she looked at me as she walked
alongside. “You’re going to try to do the whole distance, aren’t
you!” “Yep!” “You are a very determined man!” “Yep!” I went
the whole distance.



Now the doc is thinking about surgery again. Maybe he had some
gambling losses or bought a new Porsche, who knows? He said we’d
schedule it for Wednesday pending an exam and xrays on Tuesday; it’s
a lot easier to cancel surgery than it is to schedule it. That does
make sense.

Don Foreman






Thanks Karl, good to see Don's still going along ok.

On 6/28/2014 5:42 AM, Karl Townsend wrote:


Life lurches on as a denizen of Old Fart Farms.


SNIP


Don Foreman

Good to hear from Don .Even though we've never communicated, I really
enjoyed his posts over the years, some happy, some sad, all heart
touching. Get better soon. I need my fix of shooting stories. I think
it's still legal for old farts to carry. G

Karl Townsend wrote:
Life lurches on as a denizen of Old Fart Farms.



I'm not the youngest person here by any means, but I may be the
feistiest. OT is occupational therapy, PT is physical therapy. I
wondered how OT might pertain to me since I'm retired. Turns out it's
about learning to do everyday things under new constraints. I guess
they figure that older people, and particularly older single people
who live alone, can find that to be somewhere between challenging and
overwhelming.



I din't take no steenkin' rest stops. When we got to the corner,
which is maybe 2/3 of the way, she looked at me as she walked
alongside. "You're going to try to do the whole distance, aren't
you!" "Yep!" "You are a very determined man!" "Yep!" I went
the whole distance.



Now the doc is thinking about surgery again. Maybe he had some
gambling losses or bought a new Porsche, who knows? He said we'd
schedule it for Wednesday pending an exam and xrays on Tuesday; it's
a lot easier to cancel surgery than it is to schedule it. That does
make sense.

Don Foreman


Ya know , this is exactly what I figured , from what I've learned about
Don here . Give 'em hell ! And lets hope the doc cancels that second surgery
..
--
Snag