Winning Small Battles: Showers, School Plans, and Saying Goodbye to Extra Caregivers

I'm finally moving in a positive direction with my recovery after breaking my hip in July and can transition from two caregivers down to just one starting next week.

• Struggled with having multiple caregivers in my home when I prefer one-on-one care
• Experienced frustrations at a five-star rated rehab facility that didn't understand how to work with my CP
• Making slow but steady progress with in-home PT, recently celebrated taking a shower independently
• Starting school in October after pushing back the date to allow more recovery time
• Using a specialized splint as part of my rehabilitation process
• Looking forward to Arizona's winter weather after the intense summer heat
• Planning to record solo podcast episodes while my co-host is on a Disney cruise

If you're going through recovery, remember that slow and steady wins the race, and it's important to advocate for the care that works best for your specific needs.

Chapters

• 0:00 Good News About Recovery Journey
• 4:04 Challenges with Multiple Caregivers
• 7:55 Rehab Experience and Coming Home
• 10:41 Progress and Future Plans
• 15:19 Disney Cruise and Personal Updates
• 18:00 Closing and Apple Talk

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to a winning hunt, you guys. I, yeah, I almost said finally, there is good news. There will be good news in this episode. Yay, Finally my schedule's slowing down enough so that I can go back to school, which now starts in October. Because I couldn't get everything organized to get every single transcript done as a son in it into Grand Canyon University, so I pushed it back to October 13th.

Speaker 1: 0:48

So that's fine, but as we record this on Sunday, september, well, if I was the 13th, the 14th, the 15th, the 15th, I think I get oh, geez, my BFF is, you're absolutely right. I've been staring at it all day and still can't get it right. You guys, jeez, okay, the 14th. Thank you, bff, for chiming in there. You should probably take over this podcast at this point because you're smarter than me. So the 14th.

Speaker 1: 1:46

So I get to go down to one caregiver on Monday. So on Monday, the 15th of September, I get to go down to one caregiver. I could go down to one caregiver and yay, yay, because, yay, two caregivers. Let's just say yay, how am I going to put this? Do it for me halfway up the wall. And I needed two caregivers until, even though I'm even though having two people in this house throw me halfway up the wall. I'm very grateful to them and I am very, very, very, very grateful to them and people behind the scenes who've worked with me. But I need one-on-one caregiving. That is just me. That is just me. That it doesn't mean Wynn doesn't do well with two people and Wynn doesn't do well with two people to not being team players because there's no INT and so I don't do well with. I do better with one-on-one I don't do well with. I do better with one-on-one I don't do. I've always done better with one-on-one. I don't do better with two people on top of me.

Speaker 1: 3:37

But that's the way it rolled, rolled and virtually when this incident happened back in July, july 17th, it ended up being that I sought my hip boys out, as I said, and then it ended up being a whole big mess. They sent me to a rehab that gets five stars on paper the top rating but yet they didn't do anything to help me. I don't know. I don't know whether they didn't understand CP or whether they didn't understand me and how hard I wanted to work, but yet they were too afraid to move me.

Speaker 1: 4:34

And yet when I got pneumonia, it was so funny and sad. Sad and funny at the same time, because I go, owie, owie, as a joke I think I said it as a joke and they go. Well, the PTs go. We don't want to work with you, you have to see orthopedics. And then they are looking at me like what to see orthopedics? And then they are looking at me like what? Yes, they literally said that, because I I said Ellie and they took Ali as patient refuses PT. No, I said patient just needs to move and Allie will be done. Allie is a joke to the tension in the room, but PTs took it to the next extreme. And then, once I get home, we start in-home PT, which has been amazing because I'm getting back to where I was. Yes, it's taking a lot longer than we all want it, but at least I'm doing it.

Speaker 1: 6:05

And I landed up taking a shower today, which that was a huge success. I've done that before. So I'm slowly but surely getting back to where I was. But I needed my schedule to calm down so I can add another thing to my plate called school, and another thing to my plate called another podcast, which I'm doing slowly but surely. And so I needed my life to calm down so I can add another thing to my plate. For that to happen, I needed people to exit my life, not necessarily exit my life in a bad way, but just exit my life so that I can get my life back. I mean, jeez, two people at night, two people during the day.

Speaker 1: 7:21

I mean at one point it was a three-wing circus in this house. Three-wing circus I mean, as I said, let the inmates running a same asylum know, and it's like, can we just stop the three-wing circus? And the reason why the three-wing circus happened is because rehab did not set me up for success going home. They set me up for disaster. I mean my aide and I tell this story publicly my aide didn't. The driver left me in my kitchen without my aide. My aide was two minutes behind me, mind you, and so the driver left and so my aide had no help. This was the first day home, mind you, and that's when the three-wing circus started to all go downhill.

Speaker 1: 8:44

Now it's going uphill and I was like, keep it that way. People Keep it going uphill. We would like to keep it going uphill, because uphill is better than downhill. No news is good news, as they say. No news is good news. So I would like to keep it going uphill rather than downhill and sideways. I mean, at one point I saw it in rehab, I saw it was going. One point I thought in rehab I thought it was going to go downhill and I thought it was going to go downhill. I didn't think I was going to see home ever because my own house, ever because I thought, okay, rocky slopes, I can't even get into the wheelchair, let alone the shower chair, let alone the shower chair. And yes, I do have a splint, the dino splint, and I do wear that. That's happening this week as well, and that's happening this week. And they want me to wear it six hours.

Speaker 1: 10:09

I think on Monday we're going to I'm glad that I'm going. I only have one caregiver here. So I think on Monday we're going to start out with one hour and do maybe two hours if I feel up to it, if my body feels up to it, so yeah, so, other than that, well, I'm headed in the upward direction. I think Danielle is headed in the upward direction of excited to go on. Disney Proves Lucky Ducky, yeah, yeah. Well, lucky Ducky, let's just say, friend, she's going with loves, loves and still loves Mindy Mouse. So that ought to be fun.

Speaker 1: 11:11

You, too, on the cruise and it's going. It's so when, as I said last week, and I repeat to you guys, as I said last week, and I repeat to you guys, don't bug Danielle, because she's on cruise dancing with Mickey Mouse, and probably dancing with Minnie Mouse too, and I'm stuck living right here, I feel like I have trauma right now. I feel like I'm missing out because I'm like Disney Cruise sounds fun rather than lying in bed staring at the walls. But that's what happens when your leg decides it's perhaps underneath you. Yeah, that's what happens when you decide to break your hip and not do anything about it and then your leg decides to collapse underneath you. But we're getting to the point where I can move slowly but surely again, and so it's all going to be good.

Speaker 1: 12:16

School starts in October. It's all going to be good, going down to one caregiver, which is great, and I'm going. There's going to be a couple special surprises on this podcast I'm working on. I'm excited to go back to school because it gives me something to do, keeps me busy, and I'm just excited to jump back into the classroom and finally get my communications degree and then be done with school and then be done with, have that communications degree underneath my belt, and I am just so excited to go back to school and so excited to get winter started here in Arizona. If you know Arizona, you guys, you know it's incredibly hot here in the summer. So winter is nice, winter is nicer than the summer, and so we are looking forward to winter. And no, it doesn't snow in Phoenix, so I'm happy not to see snow, but I do miss it and I want to possibly do some traveling after I get better, and we'll see.

Speaker 1: 13:54

My main focus right now is my health and school and getting along with my age as best I can, although it's going to be an interesting process going from one can't give it to two, but I'm lucky that I can do it. So, and to say I'm partially bed bound, that's not true, because if I was fully bedbound I could not get up and take a shower. So there we go, and I had a good PC session on Thursday, so I'm getting there. It's just slowly but surely, slow and steady, wins the race, and it's strong, steady winds, race here, and this is good news and only one belt of pneumonia. Hopefully no more of that, because that was scary and so, yeah, no more of that. Everything is going slowly but surely, but smoothly, and I'm still going to school, even though I got pushed back to October, and yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:21

So that's the life update on me and, without further ado, I'm going to let Ms Fond Hare lead us out. Thank you for following us. What she said, and maybe I'll do it While she's dancing with Mickey Mouse, maybe I'll do a couple solo episodes. So, dance with Mickey Mouse, I'll do a couple solo episodes to keep you guys updated on me. So, while she's, and then when she gets back, she can explain how fun dancing with Mickey Mouse was. Yeah, and tomorrow I am signing therapy out.

Speaker 1: 16:23

What? Yeah, you are a oh jeez, you are. Yeah, okay, yes, I forgot, because, people, I'm on beta, so she's excited because, as you know, we should do Apple with CP. We should do Apple with CP as a podcast, because we're two Apple girlies. I'm sorry, we're not Android girlies, although I happen to be nice to you, android people, because you, you listen to my podcast, though I happen to be equally as nice to you and write to people, but you and I are two Apple girlies and, yes, I'm going back to school with an iPad and yeah, and if I need to get a computer, I need to get a computer, but we're going to try the iPad and then, if it doesn't work, I to get a computer. I need to get a computer, but we're going to try the iPad and then, if it doesn't work, I'll get a computer. I'll figure it out.

Speaker 1: 17:34

But for those of you that don't know, danielle and I are Apple band girls, and so she's all excited that the new Apple toys have come out, and she's all excited that the new Apple toys have come out, and she's all excited that the new iOS has come out, and so she'll be playing with that. I've already played with it and it's pretty cool. So, yeah, yeah, apple Gurley's, make it Apple Gurley's. It will always be Apple, team Apple all the way, and I have a solo episode that I can do about Team Apple when Danielle's gone. So you guys have to wait to hear that one. So, and score and Team Apple. So that's what she's all excited about, but we're going to let you guys go and I hope we can see you guys next week. Bye, you guys, have a great week. Bye, bye.