Lyndsay was probably the closest I came to a girlfriend at the Rehabilitation Center. She was my Occupational therapist. We did a little of everything together, but mostly she worked my arms. At first she taped my shoulders back because I had rotten posture. This I knew because I had Scoliosis and had been seeing a chiropractor since I was nine years old, but I also slouched. The stroke made my bad shoulders more pronounced, so they had to be taped back. Every other day, Lyndsay would apply fresh tape to my shoulders in my room. The tape didn't bother me at all. I couldn't even feel it, and it worked, especially for my left shoulder, even though I was skeptical at first that it would work at all.
Lyndsay was my cheerleader. She called me 'Linda Binda,' and I never minded at all. She was always appropriately amazed whenever I told her of some new accomplishment with Fred, and she was one of the few who told me every day that I was getting better. If Fred and I had something that I could do to show somebody, as we inevitably did, Lyndsay always smiled and looked amazed at me, even if she had another client at the time.
I liked OT, or Occupational therapy, if you prefer a mouthful. We did puzzles and even baked brownies. Anything that had to do with my arms, we did. Lyndsay was very inventive, as were all my therapists. She didn't want me to get bored. But Lyndsay was particularly good at inventing things for me to do.
At first I sat on the mat practically every day. I didn't know why this was so important since I had forgotten everything anybody told me and what I could or could not expect from myself early on in my recovery, but Lyndsay insisted and that was good enough for me. Now I know why was so important. If you can't sit, you can't stand, and standing alone is very important. At first I was so wobbly that I had to have something behind me. Lyndsay called the thing behind me a 'rainbow' because it was made from stuffed plastic that was so many colors that it looked like a rainbow. All I know is that I needed something to support me, then, whatever it was called. My young daughter later used it as a slide, but I used it to keep from falling over. I was so wobbly that it was weeks before Lyndsay would let me sit by myself. Now I sit alone without thinking twice, but back then, I needed something to support me. It was the scariest feeling to sit up, but I did it anyway because Lyndsay asked me to.
Lyndsay asked me to do many scary things, such as standing at the parallel bars, climbing the finger ladder (a device meant to drive anybody crazy, it was just made of wood, and your fingers literally climb cracks in it. There was always a higher crack to taunt you. The Center's finger ladder was made by one of the therapists. Now that I think about it, I dreaded the finger ladder more than it frightened me. Don often threatens me with building one of our on when he wants to get me to do something that is for my own good, but I would rather not do), and recreating pictures using blocks of painted wood. The last sounds easier than it was, since I had to choose the picture, and I inevitably chose a hard one. Some of the blocks were half one color and half of another. This wouldn't be a problem, except stroke victims often have double vision, and to them, putting a puzzle together is a nightmare. I wore a patch over one of the lenses of my glasses to correct this problem until I finally got a prism for my eyeglasses, more than half way through my therapy.
For me, OT was relatively easy. Until Don mentioned that he wanted me as a member of the Dowel Group. The Dowel Group, lifting a dowel over the head in motions meant to strengthen the shoulders, would always be considered extremely difficult by me, who could barely lift a book. My salvation came in the simple excuse that I couldn't lift a dowel over my head, even while sitting in my wheelchair, so that ended that, and I was secretly grateful. I didn't want to be in the Dowel Group. I figured I already did enough. But Molly, who was filling in for Lyndsay while she had eye surgery, had the brilliant idea that I lay down on my back on the mat while I lifted the dowel over my head to limber up my shoulders so I could eventually be in Dowel Group. Lifting my arms above my head hurt, but it worked! My shoulders soon became loose and I could lift a dowel anywhere, though it was painful at first.
I was always having substitutes in OT. On the weekends, or when Lyndsay had the day off, I had subs. Everybody wanted me for a session, though I didn't know why. This was really illustrated the days I had a man named Matt. I think it was a weekend, but Matt was a regular OT and I didn't work with him until late during my stay at The Center. All I can say about having Matt for an OT session is 'poor Matt.' All I did during the sessions was cry. It must have broken his heart, and I couldn't explain things, because I didn't know about labile crying yet. He asked me to trace a bunch of lines, I remember, and even though I was already writing by myself, though poorly, by then, I could recall how well my fingers used to work. But after the stroke, my fingers didn't work at all. I couldn't trace a straight line to save my life. I got frustrated, and then I started to cry about it, just to make matters worse. He didn't know what to do with me, and I don't blame him. I didn't know what to do with me, either. I simply couldn't figure out why my fingers wouldn't miraculously work.
I liked Matt, and didn't want to cry for him. But I couldn't explain what was wrong with me, because I couldn't speak while crying, and he sure as heck didn't know what was wrong with me. He couldn't read my mind, after all. He's probably scratching his head right now, thinking, 'Oh, that's what was wrong!'
Lyndsay would take me up to the next big improvement, then inevitably have to go somewhere, leaving Molly in charge. That's how Molly got to teach me almost everything I learned. She was the first to see me eat alone, to put me on the weights machines just to see how I would handle them, she convinced my arms to move, she helped me with my fingers, and she saw me walk first. However, I will never forget when my left thumb moved for the first time. That movement miracle was with Lyndsay. We were doing something together, and without warning my thumb started moving on its own. Lyndsay was so excited. We had been working on my hands for ages, and my thumb was the first to move of its own volition. It moved up and down, and Lyndsay screamed in surprise. She was happy for me, ecstatic, even. But she had to feel that she had played some part in it. Oddly enough, my right arm is now the stronger of the two, even though my left side always came back first. The one thing I learned to expect with me was to expect the opposite of what everybody else was doing or had done. The only thing that ever seemed to be even remotely predictable was that I would recover quickly, and that if it was at all the norm, we should expect me to realize the opposite. So we did, though it took a lot of training to expect the unexpected
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