Physical Rehabbing is another Way of Saying “Hurry Up and Wait”

Everyone wants to be healthy and wealthy. If not wealthy, then have enough to at least stay even with the crowd. If not totally healthy, then at least enough to maintain a level of dignity and self-support as much as possible. Such are the dreams of those sleeping the night through in rehab facilities. “Hurry up and Wait” pretty much describes what goes on during physical rehabilitation as a result of injuries or surgery.

The rehab therapist sends an assistant to the patient’s room and rushes him or her via wheelchair to the exercise room despite whatever the beneficiary of the said workout is doing at that moment. Once there, the patient is told to wait while the therapist works with someone else.

The therapist finally focuses his or her attention to the said patient. He or she demonstrates for a moment or two what the patient is expected to do for the next few minutes but runs off to help someone else. After a wait of another few minutes, attention is again returned to quickly demonstrate another task to perform but off goes the therapist once more. Eventually the patient is wheeled out into the hall and told to wait until someone can wheel him or her back to his or her room.

Another type of ‘hurry up and wait’ is for the healing process itself. It can be a long duration depending on the injury to a broken bone and surgery to repair the damage. In Ma’s case, she fell and broke her left hip. That same night she had surgery and six weeks later, she sits in frustration at the rehabilitation facility. The other day she met with her surgeon who told her she was progressing fine but that six weeks was not enough time to heal back to her old self.

For one, older people have an issue with osteoporosis, which is a polite way of saying they suffer from soft bone tissue. Simply put, Ma’s bones break too easily and if she rushes the mending earlier than it should be, she runs the risk of re-breaking the left hip. Seven years prior, she fell and broke her right hip, had surgery and was back to her normal self- whatever that means- after two months. However, the break was not as thorough as this time and she was seven years younger and stronger.

The doctor also said magic words. “Look, Medicare gives you 100 days to get better on their checkbook. Take advantage of it as much as you need.” For her it means two weeks of putting at least 50% pressure down on her left foot whereas up until now it was four weeks of no pressure. She has used a walker during exercise time with the left heel down and her toes up. It is up to Ma to go about her business of proving that this next phase is a piece of cake.

After two weeks, it will be the sixty day mark from the time of the surgery. She will be able to try 100% weighted pressure on her left foot as well as walk stairs. The surgeon said that when she can put 100% pressure down, she can go home but that it would not be wise to do so if she cannot master going up and down stairs.

This obviously generates lots of frustration. She feels better than she did six weeks earlier and can do some things again but she wants total freedom. Who doesn’t? Healthy people take for granted that they can take care of themselves.

When I was sixteen and a half, I did a stupid thing- one of just many in my lifetime- and jumped over a fence that I knew had an eight foot drop to a cement floor. Naturally, I broke a metatarsal bone in my left foot which has never healed properly ’til this day. But, being 16, I was also young and strong enough to ignore the fact that I had done damage. Other than wearing a shoe with a wooden sole to act as a splint and cushion the pounding that walking did to the sensitive break, I went about my normal business. I even went to my high school graduation with that stupid wooden shoe. No cane, walker or crutches. I probably would do the same today. But if this were to happen twenty years from now, I suspect I would be grounded for several days as well as using a walker for a while.

That magic word- Medicare- helps soothe some of the pain for those in the same boat as Ma. American society decided that the age of 65 (or whatever it will be in the future) is the special passport to government financed medical care. The first twenty days after surgery, Medicare pays 100% for her recovery provided she is able to show an effort in cooperating with said recovery. After twenty days, Medicare pays 80% and the Medicare Part B co-insurer pays the other 20%. Ma has up to 100 days in a calendar year from the time of surgery to take advantage of all that Medicare will finance. If Ma stays in a rehab place for sixty days and then goes home, she can still return and use the other 40 days up to the anniversary of the surgery.

Once upon a time- sounds almost like a fairy tale, huh?- retired social security recipients were not asked to pay much at all for Medicare benefits. Now, each monthly payment they receive automatically withholds Medicare Insurance premiums. For some people this can be over $300 per month. That is a lot of money to take away from someone who is ending up with anywhere from $1400 to $2000 a month in social security money. And there are those like Ma who saw their social security money drop 40 percent when Dad passed away as well as lost Dad’s pension. The biggest slap in the face to senior citizens is that for the past couple of years there has been no increase in social security benefits due to the “Economy”. But there has been an increase in Medicare premiums withheld. Beneficiaries in 2010 are receiving less social security money in 2011 than in 2010. The situation does not look any better for 2012.

A Senior Moment

Having split her right femur bone in half nearly two weeks earlier, Ma was now resting comfortably at a rehab facility four blocks from my condo. She insisted that she go to a place dedicated more to helping a person regain their walking skills rather than to a “shut up and lie down” nursing home environment.

She was starting to get used to two-a-day grueling therapy sessions where she was not babied in the least bit. I thought about that movie Ruthless People where Bette Midler is kidnapped and tossed into a basement but given free reign. She uses the time to start exercising and by the time she is released looks like a sculpted athlete.

On Sundays and holidays there were no therapy sessions because the management did not want to pay extra to the therapists. This meant Ma would be sitting around doing nothing on Memorial Day Weekend.

I dropped in on the Monday holiday afternoon figuring she would be miserable watching the Cubs lose another ballgame. Instead she was not in her room. Instinctively, I went downstairs to the lower level entertainment center where I caught her watching a live (well, he wasn’t dead) musician play an electric violin accompanied by a Karaoke instrumental background music-making machine.

My sister was sitting there with Ma as well. Show business is in our family blood so the three of us unabashedly sang the words to the songs being played and we corrected along with another member of the audience the mistakes made by the entertainer on the background information to each piece. (Stuff like- Marlon Brando sang Luck Be a Lady in the Guys and Dolls movie, Sinatra sang it on a hit album.)

About a half hour after the performance was over and Ma was ensconced back in her room, I decided it was time to depart. I went down to the first floor at the entrance area and gave the attendant my name so she could record that I had left. As I was about to walk out at the electric sliding door, the two ladies who had been sitting to the right of Ma during the violinist performance stopped me. One had hair that was dyed black while the other a very white bouffant. Whitey was sitting in a kind of contraption that not only enabled her to be mobile but also provided a shelf for her to store accessories.

They both said in unison how much they enjoyed my singing voice. I told them that I wasn’t that good and figured they suffered from loss of hearing. They insisted that I was being humble. Trust me- I wasn’t. The younger one then went on to gush how she had seen the performer twice before and thought he was just grand. That’s when I knew she was definitely no judge of talent.

I asked the presumably younger one how long she had to be there. She said she had hip problems and had been in the place on and off for six months. I then turned to the white haired one and carefully tried to frame my question so it wouldn’t sound as if I thought she was stuck there for the duration.

I bravely asked, “and how long do you need to be here?” wincing as the words came out of my mouth. She replied, “oh, I’m just visiting. She’s my daughter,” while pointing to the alleged brunette.