Second day at Fiona Stanley

The next morning after the day of my arrival, I woke up a little bit early than usual as when I was at Charlie Gairdner. This time I woke up at around 6:45 with thein shades still closed. I could tell that I had woken up too early and everything was still quiet outside, especially in the hallways as there were only a couple of nurses patrolling the corridors and at the nurse's station. Ellie the nurse came into my room with an observation machine to monitor my heartbeat, blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen saturation. She approached and asked how my sleep last night was and I responded by saying that it was okay, I fell asleep almost immediately. Upon hearing my response she said," that's good to hear, most patients usually have a difficult time sleeping on their first day. Settling into their new be is usually tough for many patients but it's good to know that your sleep was okay." Ellie then placed the blood pressure cuffs on my arm and began taking notes of my blood pressure. The results cam ou normal, there was no high blood pressure and the temperature was normal too.

 After the observation, I asked her what my schedule for the day was. She said it was occupational therapy first and I had to find my occupational therapist, Jescinta Brown. Ellie told me that she will come shortly in a few minutes. Sure enough, she did. Jescinta came into my room. She was wearing her navy blue colored uniform and wore glasses. Her overall physique was somewhat chubby but still bearable to look at. She approached me and sit next to my left. She began introducing herself and asked if I was willing to participate in her mental testing to examine my cognitive ability after my brain injury. I said," ye to her question and she began asking me some basic question such as my knowledge of my current whereabouts, the time day and date. I could only answer where I was but couldn't answer the date except I knew it was 2016. he then told me to start looking at a calendar and to be more aware of the date so I won't lose my time orientation. The second question she asked was a form of probing, she asked me to name objects that start with the letter P. I answered the question with ease and passed it with little effort and told me that my left hemisphere is still functioning normally. After the probing question had ended. Jescinta concluded the therapy for that day and left my room. I was again left alone to my self and my roommate, Roy inside our room.

As I was lying in my bed watching TV. Roy started talking and asked me a couple of questions such as my condition, where I was from and what my occupation was. I answered all his questions and he was surprised to know that I had an AVM and he told me that  I wasn't the first person he met with it there was a patient before me with one in his occipital lobe and he was partially blind on his peripheral vision. Hearing that I was thankful that my deficits weren't that severe. However, I began pondering whether or not i"ll be able to go back to my normal self ever again. I brought the computer screen closer and opened up google chrome to start searching for some answers. Just as I began searching some lady popped into the room and asked, "Are you Samuel?, I answered," Yep that's me" She then introduced herself as Alicia, my speech therapist. I was in luck because Alicia was stunningly gorgeous. I became a little bit motivated to do my therapy with her, sadly I was solely focused on her looks that would sometimes forget to answer some of her questions and end up sounding like a fool. My session with Alicia lasted for a  total of 45 minutes. After which, the session ended and she left the room.

I was alone again with Roy in the room. Both of us were in our beds watching the same channel on our televisions, the food network. We both have a bit of an interest in cooking so we both tuned in on the same things on the channel. Just as we were discussing food while watching, the catering lady came into our room and dropped off our lunch at both of our bedside tables. I brought my tray closer to me and lifted the lid. To my surprise, the lunch looks somewhat dissatisfying. It was some sort of beef casserole called beef rump. I tasted it and could compare its texture to jelly as they have made it soft until it was mushy. Its appearance was comparable to feces or any other form excrement. I forced myself to eat it until nothing was left on the plate.

At around 1:35 another lady came inside the room with a wheelchair. I had no idea who this lady was but she was definitely a member of the hospital staff since she was wearing the Fiona Stanley Uniform. She headed towards me with the wheelchair and introduced herself as Catherine, my physiotherapist. She explained to me that it was time to go to the physio gym and get some exercises done. After the clarification, I voluntarily move myself to the right where I gently drop off my bed and placed myself on the wheelchair. he then rolled me to the physio gym at the end of the hallway. The moment I reached the gym, I was asked to get on the plinth to start some stretching and basic movements. The first part of my physio program was stretching. Catherine placed me flat on y back on the plinth, she grabbed my left arm and began rotating my wrist both clockwise and counterclockwise while she pulls my arm away from my body. This particular movement is to loosen up the pectoralis muscles that have tightened up. The way she twists my arm was painful and it made me suffocate as the pulling would pull out the muscles close to my lungs. Thankfully this torture of an exercise only lasted for 35 minutes. We then proceeded with the soft motor movements such as learn how to use pelvis equally o both sides, this exercise is known as a pelvic tilt. I sat at the edge of my plinth while Catherine sat behind me, I was then told to slouch and sit upright slowly. this was basically my exercise, slouching and sitting straight, which was frankly quite boring.

After two hours of tedious and mundane physio movements, it was time to conclude the session for the day and head back to my room and await dinner. Catherine helped me transfer myself on the wheelchair and rolled me out into the hallways and back inside my room. As I entered back into my room, I could smell something in the air, it smelled like food. Roy looked at me and said, "start eating, dinner came early today." I went over to my bed and my dinner was already waiting for me on the bedside table. I lifted the lid and to my surprise, it's chicken thighs covered with some sort of lemon sauce and sage.