As Day Fifty ends, Jenny officially finishes her first day of rehabilitation. There is no set schedule for each of her three main rehab activities due to the nature of the rehab center. There is always a constant flow of ingoing and outgoing patients, each with their own agenda and off-site appointments they cannot miss. Many patients need to book special wheelchair transportation so all rehab activity schedules are decided the morning of every single day to accommodate for all schedules. This means I have no idea when any of Jenny’s appointments happen until that very morning.

The day started with Speech & Language Pathology. These are usually done one on one so I am thankful I have permission to sit in as an observer. Hearing Jenny talk to the S.L.P. therapist and try to answer even basic questions is extremely heart-wrenching because it showed me the current state of her mind that I would not have been aware of otherwise.

S.L.P. therapy began with basic questions. One of the very first questions was “Where do you think you are you right now?” and Jenny responded that she believes she is in Taiwan. She had previously worked there over 13 years ago, so the fact that she still thinks she’s in Taiwan and not Canada is noteworthy. One of the next activities was identifying common items. Jenny was able to identify a horse, but she was not able to identify a fan. She was able to identify a basketball, but not the number 8. Her accuracy for matching words to pictures was under 30%. There were then some basic writing exercises where she was showed pictures and had to write what she thought was shown to her. Jenny is originally right-handed, but since her entire right arm is still severely damaged she had to attempt to write the answers with her non-dominant left hand.

After the fourth word, Jenny’s mind became tired and she began scribbling answers quickly in order to get the activity over with. This set the base line for her S.L.P. journey.

Occupational Therapy was the next stop. For all of these first time activities, I felt like they were setting a base line for where Jenny would be starting at. The O.T. therapist spent the entire time checking to see Jenny’s range of motion of her legs, arms, hands, joints and neck and that’s it for today as it had begun causing Jenny a lot of pain.

Lastly, Physiotherapy focused on seeing how far she could control her limbs, specifically her right arm. The P.T. asked Jenny to squeeze her right hand and Jenny could not. She could barely move her fingers. She also did the hammer check reaction check on her left and right knee. The left leg responded normally, but the right one did not respond.

For the rest of the evening, Jenny was not happy. She does not understand why she is in rehab, and continues to request to go home. She remains restless for the rest of the evening until her sleeping pill kicks in and allows her to sleep. I am then able to leave for the night to get some rest myself.

As Day Fifty-One ends, the day begins with Speech and Language Pathology again. The activity today is “point to the blank” where Jenny is given a word and she is given a selection of 4 pictures and has to choose the correct one. The first word is “Pencil” and there are pictures of a dog, a building, a cup and a pencil. Jenny points to the cup and says that’s the pencil. Jenny is then given a list of words, with some words being animals. She is told to point out which words are animals. She cannot point out a single one. However, she does understand that snow is white and that there are 7 days in a week.

For Occupational Therapy today, Jenny goes for a walk. She is only allowed to walk with a two-person assist, meaning two people have to walk alongside her as she begins to re-learn the balance of walking properly. Her right leg is a bit slower which causes her to lose balance and stumble often.

Physiotherapy told me that the shoes I brought Jenny are the wrong size. I must bring another pair tomorrow. Apparently Jenny is not a size 7 shoe, but a size 8. She appears to buy both sizes however, and I’m not quite sure why. For her physiotherapy activity today, Jenny is tested on a horizontal standing bike. She makes it to 1 minute and 30 seconds before saying she is tired.

Lastly, I feel like I am being pushed to my mental and physical limits today because Jenny is raising her voice and complaining to me because she wants to go to the washroom on her own but all the therapists state that she requires two person assistance for anything right now. She believes she can do it on her own and wants me to break protocol for her when we’re alone and becomes angry at me when I say I cannot break the rules set out for her and when I am forced to call for assistance she feels betrayed and this unfound stress point will continue throughout the coming week.