Building Strength

As I shared in our last post, I’m down in Atlanta with David for care partner training. There is a whole LONG checklist of things that we need to be able to do together so he can be discharged in less than 2 weeks from in-patient into the Shepherd Day Program. I’m ticking things off hour by hour though. 

Breaking news: TeamSward is on Facebook and Insta - please check them out, follow, and help us spread the word for the May 29 event at Babycat Brewery in Kensington. I tagged TeamSward with some pictures of our off campus adventures today. Please follow & share! 

On both Monday and Tuesday, David’s primary nurse, Sandra, spent a few hours on our training. She’s a great teacher and her care of David has been incredible. I’ve learned a lot from here. I’ll share more on my progress (or lack thereof in one particular area) with another post this week. 

David continues to make progress with regaining function but also learning and using the adaptive tricks that which the Shepherd team excels at teaching and coming up with. He has custom-fitted 3D printed splints to help support his wrist and give him more hand control. I asked him to sum up his PT goals right now and his response was short & sweet, “I’m working on building strength.” Strength is key - as he continues to gain more strength in his arms, shoulders, and back, he’ll have more control in his arms and hands. They can’t make any predictions about how much function will come back but there’s only one way that it will happen: hard work. 

Shepherd has a lot of state of the art technology including the Burt, which David used at one of his therapy sessions on Monday. My understanding from observing his session is that the Burt can isolate certain muscles to strengthen them while simultaneously limiting overcompensation or use by neighboring muscles — making it a very targeted workout. His arm is strapped in and then it uses games and AI to make those muscles work even harder. In Monday’s session, David had a harder time moving his left shoulder to the left so the machine kept putting objects there - whether it was as part of an air hockey game, a piñata punching game or simulating laundry. I warned the therapist that David was competitive but he didn’t listen to me. By the end of the session, David was exhausted but dammit, he finished that virtual laundry. 

On Tuesday, Taco Tuesday and Cinco de Mayo collided at the weekly community dinner at Shepherd. The Shepherd board and family served us Mexican food (sans margaritas, unfortunately). As is the after dinner tradition, bingo - with prizes - commenced. You may recall that last time I was here & we went, David won; tonight we BOTH won. Again, not competitive at all.

But that competitiveness bodes well: when he’s challenged by his therapists to do something hard -  especially doing something that uses fine motor skills - he’ll buckle down, focus, and work as hard as he can. And ultimately, that’s what will get us home and back with all of you.

Love, 

Erika & David