Regular Workouts Now

Merwin still reporting.

On Monday Bernice was a full participant in the rehabilitation program. They are awoken at about 6:30 but Bernice was already awake. She is in a good-sized room with three other women so they take turns in the single bathroom, have their breakfast, get dressed, see their doctors if scheduled. Something like a childhood summer camp experience. At 10:00 she started an hour long session in Occupational Therapy. Its aim is to prepare for doing all the necessary tasks of home life such as dealing with stairs, getting into and out of bed, dressing with special attention to getting on socks, shoes, and other attire that may now be somewhat out of reach. When Bernice fell in March and broke her pelvis our dear friend Betty sent her a set of very useful tools to help in such pursuits. Now Bernice is practicing with these same tools and finds them very useful. It is ironic that in May or so when Bernice no longer needed these aids, we sent them off to our synagogue so they could be used by others with a similar need. I now intend to retrieve the tools along with a "wheelie" we also sent off. At 11:00 the hour-long Physical Therapy session commenced where the aim is to strengthen all the muscles so needed for walking, lifting, and doing all the ordinary things that the able understandably take for granted. There is a break for lunch and a bit of a rest. Bernice enthusiastically embraces the routines and it is amazing to me just how much she needs to build herself up again to the level she was at last March when she did Spin three days a week and took other exercise classes the other three days. At 3:00 there is another hour of Physical Therapy.

I came for my first visit at about 5:00 bearing a raft of her emails, two more New Yorkers, and the NY Times. I wheel-chaired her out to a lovely patio lined with trees and flowering shrubs and there, after verbally catching up on our day's news and exchanging modest kisses, I read to her. The classes had pooped her and this interlude catching up on news with my reading was clearly a relaxing coda to the day.

I may not report daily for I anticipate that Bernice's routine will now be one of repetitive but hopefully very healing rehab sessions.

love to all,
Merwin