Drugs work. For the first time, I could finally sit up without feeling dizzy, and this really helped with...getting better. I began to get some small movements back in my arms and legs by week three, and by the end of the week I could use a slide board to get from bed to wheelchair with a two person assist. I would have to lean forward and put my head on my physio's shoulder, and another physio would help lift from behind and we would slowly shuffle/slide me to wherever I needed to be.
I had trouble trusting the nurses to slide board me, and as I had been moved out of my own room to a ward full of people, I always felt like there was the pressure of being watched (although its not as bad as people watching you swing helplessly on a hoist). The nurses expected me to be able to do more than I could and I felt like I was just going to go crashing to the floor!
Lucky for me, I had three beautiful nurses who were always there to look out for me. If you are unlucky enough to end up in hospital, trust me when I say, if you have these three looking after you, you will get better in no time! Three student nurses from Norway were on their placement in my Rehab ward, and they arrived the same day as me. Pia helped me with my first slide boards and was incredibly patient, strong and also not afraid to tell off any of the other nurses for sliding me wrong! I had Pia almost every morning to help set me up for the day, and she always made me smile (especially when she would try her English accent out on me...'Wud ya like a cuppa tea!?' Brilliant.
I also had Sandra and Rikke, friends and housemates with Pia, who would braid my hair for me and chat about travelling and music and normal things. There are only so many games of Scrabble I could play with my parents, and we were all going a bit stir crazy! So having these three nurses, around my age, to talk to me and treat me as a person, not a patient, meant a lot to me. And they were all fantastic nurses, talking and smiling and caring for everyone. Thank you ladies!
By the middle of week five I could slide board with just one person assisting. And something else amazing was happening. I was learning to stand. A physio to the front and two either side of me was how we did it at the beginning. Two would push me up and hold my legs whilst I put my hands on the physio in fronts shoulder. Learning to stand again is HARD.
'That's it Tarsha, brilliant! Legs bent, tummy tucked, shoulders forward, head up, squeeze your bottom, lean to the left...too much, back to the middle...come on Tarsha, keep holding!' 'I'm standing!' I yelled! Everyone in the gym turned and smiled at me, and calls of congratulations were echoed throughout the gym. Triumphant and exhausted, I sat back down after around a ten second stand. Five weeks of not walking, not moving, learning to do everything again...and I had stood.
Being naturally very flexible, it was so confusing to learn how to stand. My legs would snap back like solid bananas and I couldn't grasp the concept of 'soft knees'. My back would arch back and I would thrust my chest forward trying to find my balance. My poor front physio would generally get a knock in the head as I fell forward, and it was incredibly difficult to try and find my balance.
But I was finally getting somewhere. All those exercises I had been doing for two weeks were beginning to pay off, and I trusted the physio's 100% when they helped me to stand. Despite the pain I was ecstatic, I couldn't wait to tell my parents I had stood for the first time! By the end of that week it was only one person helping me stand as I would push myself up on the parallel bars. It was great to have some use of my arms again.
But then they did a blood test. And my doctor came up to me one morning on this fantastic week five and said 'We need to move you back into your own room. Your white blood cell count is extremely low, meaning you're neutropenic. We don't know why...'
Crap.
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