I wrote my first post yesterday where I reflected on "Kathy" @swelker101/tales-from-healthcare-reflections-on-patients-that-have-had-an-impact-on-me I received encouragement to write about other patients that I have had.
So here it is, the second in what is a new series. I am changing the names of the patients to protect their privacy, but their stories are all true from my perspective.
Zelda was one my first patients after getting my license to practice therapy. She arrived at our facility after being read her last rights just a few days prior.
She was sent to our facility to die.
She arrived on a gurney and placed in one of the front rooms with all sorts of hoses, wires, and monitors attached to her. She had her DNR orders and we were just waiting on the call.
That call never came.
About a week in, Zelda opened her eyes and starting talking, talking to everyone that walked by her room.
Another week went by and she received therapy orders to start services.
We started by teaching her how to roll over in the hospital bed. She was so tiny and weak, that I could do it one handed. Little by little she made progress. First in sitting up in bed, to transferring to a wheel chair on her own, to pushing her own wheel-chair down to the therapy room.
When she wan't asleep or eating, she was in the therapy gym, working on whatever plan we had given her to do on her own.
We starting working on standing in the parallel bars, then weight shifting, then a couple of steps in the bars.
She continued to work even when she wan't in a session.
The more she worked, the more she laughed, and the sassier she became.
She would cheer on the other patients, she would admonish those that didn't want to work. "Look at me!", she would say, "I was almost dead and I can do it!"
She was right. She was almost dead, but let me tell you: 7 years ago, I watched an almost dead person come into our facility in a bed and 5 months later, WALK out of the front doors ON HER OWN, ready to continue her life a much stronger and better person.
She made all of us stronger, she made all of us laugh and cry, and I hope that she's still out there, being as sassy and strong as ever.