Unconditional Love

The doctors decided it would be best for Joe to go to REHAB first before going home. He definitely needed it at this point. He still wasn’t walking good, he couldn’t get up on his own, he needed help in the bathroom and he couldn’t even dress himself without my help. They predicted it would take about a month to rehabilitate him. Of course, he was not happy about that at all. He just wanted to go home.

The ambulance crew arrived at the hospital on October 30 to transport him to the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan. It was only 15 minutes from the hospital. It would be a quick ride to our new destination. We had no idea what to expect or if we would even feel safe there. We worried that they wouldn’t know how to care for the LVAD, which was the only thing working properly. Joe was scared they wouldn’t let me stay with him. Secretly I was hoping that they wouldn’t let me stay the night so I could mentally prepare myself for his homecoming. But that was not the case, he had a private room and they made accommodations for me to stay there. I guess it was meant to be, I needed to be there and he needed me to be there.

The first night and we were settled in, the therapy would start in the morning. We had a very nice nurse that night, she made us feel at ease. They were welled trained on the LVAD and knew all about them. We were going to be safe and he was going to get better and stronger so he could go home.

We met the occupational therapist and the physical therapists the next morning. They came in and assessed Joe and asked a lot of questions. As they could see, he was really weak and could hardly do anything on his own. They were ready for the challenge, I just hope that Joe was ready. It was time for him to relearn how to do things on his own, they set goals for him and he seemed to be ok with all they were throwing at him. Joe just wanted to be home and in the woods by November 15, opening day of hunting. He lived for hunting and has never missed an opening day since I’ve known him. Don’t know if they were sure it would happen, but they gave him hope.

They worked everyday with Joe for three hours, it seemed as if he was getting a little stronger. I thought the therapy would be more intense then it was but the therapists loved him and felt so bad for him after hearing about all he had been through. They wanted him to go home just as bad as he did. We were only there for six days and he had to pass an evaluation to be able to go home by November 15th.

They took him down and had him do several things, he clearly wasn’t ready but they felt so bad for him that they said if I passed some tests and showed them that I could handle things. then they would say he was ready. I knew I could handle anything, but was I really ready? No, I wasn’t but I knew my husband was feeling defeated and he just needed to be at home. So I lied and told them I was ready. Was I doing the right thing? Should I tell them I wasn’t ready? How could I disappoint my husband, he would never forgive me.

I’m glad we went to REHAB, I just wished Joe would of stayed longer and was able to do more when he came home. I think the only thing we really got from it was more knowledge and ways for me to help Joe do what he had to do. They let him go home the next day. I loaded him in the car with all his equipment and we were headed home for the first time since September 9th, we were both excited and scared at the same time. Could we do this? Will we be ok? It was all on me now, I had to remember everything, this was it. This is what I had been practicing to do. We were home.