Rehabilitation
| ARC as it is affectionately called is short for the Amputee
Rehabilitation Clinic, and this is where the next chapter of my life filled out. On Thursday morning an ambulance was sent to take me down to the
clinic. It was a journey I was to repeat many times over the next six months.
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 Once I had settled in Karen
told me to get up between the parallel bars where she showed me how to do some
exercises and then she took time to get me familiar with everything around me.
The second visit I got to wear the Pam Aid, which is short for Pneumatic Amputee
Mobility Aid and consists of a pneumatic tube that fits over the stump and
inside a metal frame. When this is pumped up it gives you a temporary leg on
which to start learning to walk. Karen pumped it up to half pressure so that I
could get used to the feel of it and left it on for five minutes. After a
break she then put it back on and pumped it up to it's normal pressure for walking. I then got to have a go at walking again which was very odd at
first, the hardest part was when I tried to move my right foot forward, it was
as if I had forgotten how to walk. Karen helped with instructions like
"take shorter steps" and "lift the leg a little higher", I
had to think about every movement, every muscle needed to be taught to respond
to my desires once more. I now knew not only physical exhaustion from the effort
of walking, but also the mental exhaustion of having to concentrate on every
movement. It was nice to get out of the house and meet up with people even if
it was for the purpose of learning to walk. Colin explained that you have to get
used to the fact that the staff are used to seeing you in your knickers
as you have to move clothes around to get the aids into place, your dignity has
to take second place, and I was advised to wear a pair of shorts to make life
easier. We also set some goals that I would like to achieve as we progressed
into the future. My aim was to be able to swim 4 lengths, and walk and cycle 1 mile. That evening I experienced
phantom sensations again which I think was probably due to pressure on nerves in
the stump, it was nothing much and passed quickly enough.
After about four sessions I was able to walk the twenty feet or so between the parallel bars without assistance. At first I used to put both hands forward at a time, but later I had to learn to walk like a soldier moving the right arm forward while moving the left leg. |
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At home I was still using the wheelchair as ARC are not happy for people to use crutches because amputees have been known to fall and in the process damage your remaining good leg. I was now getting more adventuresome when it came to washing the pots, as I could stand at the sink on one leg and do them. Another aspect included learning to transfer from arm chair to the floor and back. Stummpy was continuing to reduce in size as the swelling went down but it would be about eight weeks from the operation in all before it was sufficient to have a cast made to make my new socket for the artificial leg and until then it was practice and more practice at the ARC. |