For someone who had always planned her day as she saw fit, and who had always organized her schedule however she preferred, having to adjust to a brand-new post-stroke routine was, really, one of the hardest things for Miss Brown to do.
No more was she able to wake up at will, prepare breakfast for her adopted daughter and boyfriend, watch them head out to work, and then decide whether to do the laundry, or go back to sleep.
No more, too, was she able to sit down on the sofa, switch on the TV for the morning program and have her leisurely breakfast of whatever food in the house she felt like having with the newspaper open by her side.
Now her diet was regimented.
So was her time.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she was due at the hospital for therapy at 8am. Thursdays she was to wait downstairs at 9am for the transport that would send her to the senior activity center where she would be there for half a day.
It was now all properly planned out.
Like a child with a timetable.
At first it was annoying, because to get to the hospital at 8am, she had to leave the house by 630am, and so because she had to have her bath, change, and her breakfast of four soft-boiled eggs- whites only- with a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil, she had to wake at 530am in order to do everything and be on time.
Notwithstanding the fact that she had the fully functional use of only one arm.
Waking up early wasn't the problem- she was used to rising in the pre-dawn hours. But it was the fact that she had to wake up early, it was the fact that she had to go for her therapy, and that there was no alternative about it.
It wasn't like she could wake up and decide that today she didn't feel like going and so didn't go. There would be phone calls from the clinic to her caregivers and then there would be a flurry of questions to which she didn't wish to answer.
In the same way she didn't mind going to the center on Thursdays, but she wondered how it would be if she woke up one Thursday and decided that she didn't wish to go. Very likely the staff at the center would ring up her caregivers, tell their side of the story and she'd have to face the same barrage of questions from them to which she also didn't want to give any answers.
It was a routine that she had to adjust to, no question about it, and really, it felt like she was going to school, with afternoon enrichment classes thrown in, because her caregivers were very determined that she focus her energies on post-stroke recovery, and so in the afternoons she would have to either meet them at a mall for hand exercises, or come back home for more exercise.
Ridiculous, really, considering how lax she had been with her own studies and her children's studies when they were growing up!
But she got used to the routine.
She got used to taking the public bus to the hospital, another public bus to wherever she was meeting her caregivers, and then in the evenings, another public bus home.
She got used to the robotic arm and the picking apple game they had in the clinic, and the games that her caregivers involved with plastic colored balls and Chinese checkers.
And even though she felt like a kindergarten kid, she must have gotten used to the transport from the center turning up outside the condo gate on Thursdays at 9- because when one day they accidentally forgot her on their route (?!), she wondered enough to ring up her caregivers up and have them ask the center why.
No more was she able to wake up at will, prepare breakfast for her adopted daughter and boyfriend, watch them head out to work, and then decide whether to do the laundry, or go back to sleep.
No more, too, was she able to sit down on the sofa, switch on the TV for the morning program and have her leisurely breakfast of whatever food in the house she felt like having with the newspaper open by her side.
Now her diet was regimented.
So was her time.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she was due at the hospital for therapy at 8am. Thursdays she was to wait downstairs at 9am for the transport that would send her to the senior activity center where she would be there for half a day.
It was now all properly planned out.
Like a child with a timetable.
At first it was annoying, because to get to the hospital at 8am, she had to leave the house by 630am, and so because she had to have her bath, change, and her breakfast of four soft-boiled eggs- whites only- with a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil, she had to wake at 530am in order to do everything and be on time.
Notwithstanding the fact that she had the fully functional use of only one arm.
Waking up early wasn't the problem- she was used to rising in the pre-dawn hours. But it was the fact that she had to wake up early, it was the fact that she had to go for her therapy, and that there was no alternative about it.
It wasn't like she could wake up and decide that today she didn't feel like going and so didn't go. There would be phone calls from the clinic to her caregivers and then there would be a flurry of questions to which she didn't wish to answer.
In the same way she didn't mind going to the center on Thursdays, but she wondered how it would be if she woke up one Thursday and decided that she didn't wish to go. Very likely the staff at the center would ring up her caregivers, tell their side of the story and she'd have to face the same barrage of questions from them to which she also didn't want to give any answers.
It was a routine that she had to adjust to, no question about it, and really, it felt like she was going to school, with afternoon enrichment classes thrown in, because her caregivers were very determined that she focus her energies on post-stroke recovery, and so in the afternoons she would have to either meet them at a mall for hand exercises, or come back home for more exercise.
Ridiculous, really, considering how lax she had been with her own studies and her children's studies when they were growing up!
But she got used to the routine.
She got used to taking the public bus to the hospital, another public bus to wherever she was meeting her caregivers, and then in the evenings, another public bus home.
She got used to the robotic arm and the picking apple game they had in the clinic, and the games that her caregivers involved with plastic colored balls and Chinese checkers.
And even though she felt like a kindergarten kid, she must have gotten used to the transport from the center turning up outside the condo gate on Thursdays at 9- because when one day they accidentally forgot her on their route (?!), she wondered enough to ring up her caregivers up and have them ask the center why.