first night without anyone

last night was karens first night without either her mom or me staying with her. it was very hard for me to know that no one was with her, but it is the way it has to be to help her get out of rehab as fast as possible. the rehab people show us studies that show that family members cause rehab to last longer than it needs to...family help the patient too much and it interferes with the patent's ability to do for themselves faster. so, we are going to do our best to help motivate karen to get out as fast as possible, which means following the instructions at all times.

karen looks great this morning. she was in regular clothes and sitting in her wheel chair when i got here. she just got done with speech therapy. even though we don't think she needs it the rehab center has to do it or the government will not give them their funding.

karen and every patient MUST have 3 hours a day (15 hours a week) of therapy. 1 hour is speech, 1 hour is physical, and 1 hour is occupational therapy. The rehab place also want their patients out of bed as much as possible. so even when karen has free time she is encouraged to be up in a chair or in the wheel chair moving around the hall, reading, or whatever. its was very nice seeing her chipper self in regular clothes up when i cam in. soon after she moved herself off to physical therapy. family are not allowed to go to the therapy except for sessions where they teach us what we need to do wen the patient is at home.

i wanted to be here for this first day to make sure i was as comfortable with how things work here as karen is. unfortunatly for both of us, in order for us to pay the bills i must go back to work tomorrow.

i will try to post something later after all session of therapy to let eveyone know how today went.