Tuesday Progress

Today, they took me away from the "beginner" steps in the PT room to the real-life steps in a fire exit stairway... a real flight of steps. I walked to the steps, went up and down the flight, and they had a wheelchair waiting for me and I said I would walk back to the PT room which I did.

The cheerleaderly "high five, Miss Pat" aside, I knew my PT guy was really stunned. He told me he had never had someone do the steps for the first time and then be able to walk back to the room. I overheard him telling some other PT therapists what I had done. So that made me feel good that it wasn't the fake motivational encouragement. That's probably unfair to say -- both to me and to my PT guy but I would rather have a muttered, "nice job" than a squealing "high five!!!"

Arrangements have been made for the ride home. Mary is coming to be my "escort." That's what they call it.

Then Barbara came today and I'm about 3/4th packed. Barbara worked like a demon, and we sorted and threw away and I looked like a hoarder which I'm not. I still had Christmas cards and other things... clothes that weren't mine... a whole bunch of stuff to get rid of. So we are hyper organized.

I can't say that I have a particular thing I want to do, or eat, when I get home. Here are some desires:

• To sleep in the dark with no TV on (right now, sometimes there are two TVs going in my room and my roommate sleeps with the light on
• To have food that is hot (not spicy, but temperature wise) and not from a steam table
• To wash the institutional stink out of my clothes and remove the nametags -- when I say stink, I just mean that they use Grade F detergent so everything has a vaguely unpleasant smell and dingy look to it. I need my Liquid Gain and dryer sheets!
• To regain my dignity and my modesty.
• To have a decent salad and other fresh fruits and vegetables. I am not saying this in a "diet" way, but 95% of the fruits and vegetables here are canned.
• As much as I appreciate and enjoy Mary and she will help me, I am sort of looking forward to being alone which I have not been in weeks. I am not saying, "leave me alone" -- not at all, but I do want to be physically alone for at least some time.

One more day, and I am supposedly out of here at 11 am on Thursday.