Time is on our side

Monday was a holiday for me so I got to sit in on Occupational Therapy with Dad. Currently they are working on balancing without his arm brace in the hopes that he won’t have to wear it forever. They have also been actively strengthening his right arm, through rigorous exercises. I say rigorous because it is for him. To the casual observer it looks like simple exercises of raising your arm, pushing your arm, bringing your arm in. And Dad can do it with a little help. The best way to describe it is “tricking” your arm to do what you want it to do through manipulation and repetition. For example, the therapist will tap repeatedly on specific muscles and then slowly raise Dad’s arm. She will do this several times until she feels his muscles reacting and then tell Dad on the next run it’s all him and to raise his arm. He is to raise it, not only a certain way (depending on if he’s lying or standing), but also to a certain point (usually locking the elbow), hold it for 3 seconds and then bring it back. The range of exercises using this technique are multiple. The thought process is that by tapping certain muscles continuously you are kick starting them to work. If those muscles aren’t worked on a daily basis they sort of “go to sleep”. For you and me, well we don’t even think about this, because our limbs just move seemingly on their own, our minds seamlessly keeping everything going. The fascination with how a damaged mind learns anew continues. As for his right hand, I described an arm brace he has that splays his fingers out and keeps his wrist straight. This helps to fix a two-fold problem I found out. If he were not to wear that for several hours each day, eventually his wrist would continue to bend inward and his fingers, already curled in, would curl in even more. If you only stretch out the fingers but not work the wrist, the wrist will bend inward as soon as you straighten the fingers. The reverse is true with the wrist. If you straighten the wrist the fingers automatically will curl inwards. Once that happens with either the wrist or fingers, they can’t be fixed. Since these are so intertwined with one another they need to be worked together in order for a successful recovery.    
Dad did really well, albeit very exhausted when the session was done. His therapist joked they would be arm wrestling next week. I subscribe to a email service of daily motivations. What can I say, we all need a cheerleader on our side once in a while. I rarely read it though; however, I happened to check it out on Monday. It read, “Time is on your side. So are all the angels. And ‘no’ is never forever.” Well time is and has been most definitely on Dad’s side and seeing the improvements he’s still making in therapy highlight what I’ve known all along and what I’ve written on here over and over again like the broken record I sometimes can be. Time is on our side

After therapy, driving around in the car