Hi folks,

It's Sue here and I thought I would update everyone on the experiences of moving Jan from S. Hospital to her new home at B., the rehab hospital.

My morning started with an early rising at 5:30am. Steve dropped me off at S. Hospital at 7am.

Jan was already dressed and just making the finishing touches to herself to be ready for the transfer by ambulance at 7:30am.

I rode inside the ambulance with Jan, who was at that time anxious about moving to her new home. The paramedics were wonderful. They made Jan feel really at ease about her new home!

I was asked to put my seat belt on, and I am glad I did so. I thought that I was going to end up sitting in the front seat with the driver when he stopped short. Fede was following us. I am not clear on one thing: Fede were you speeding??? The ambulance was moving at quite the clip! (big smile!)

We arrived at B. and without any delay Jan was taken to her new home in Room 320, Bed 2. She has a wonderful view of a park and a door that has a balcony and a window that actually opens with real fresh air!

She was immediately greeted by her nurse "Maria" and welcomed to the facility. Later on she received a card with her name written on it, welcoming her to B.

Fede stayed for a short while, but not long enough for Jan before he was off to work. I think she really misses her time with Fede.

After Fede left, she was inundated with support people on her team introducing themselves to her and explaining what their capacity was and how they would help her. This part seemed really overwhelming because Jan has a large team to help her through the next steps of recuperation. I believe we met 7 people on Jan's team all asking different questions of her. Each one had a four page questionionaire!

She already has a schedule set up that begins tomorrow with OT (Occupational Therapy), speech therapy, rehab therapy to get the right side of her body moving, and music therapy. Jan is at one of only two rehab facilities in the whole area that has music therapy!

There was no question that they were going to put her in that program after they found out that she taught music at school.

Jan set her goal as being able to go back to work!

The constant stream of team members introducing themselves and trying to get to know her slowly tired Jan out with each conversation. By noon, she was exhausted. When I left at 4pm she had still not met everyone on her team; however, her therapy begins tomorrow.

The most astounding fact that I learned yesterday had to do with her limited use of her right arm. The doctor diagnosed the arm as having "frozen shoulder syndrome" and said it could take up to 12 to 18 months to correct! (Jan has consistently beat the predictions so far - let's hope and pray she beats this one too!) Partially, the amount of time to heal has to do with the lack of physiotherapists working with Jan while she was at S. Hospital. I don't want to knock S. Hospital at all, because they did an exceptional job of saving and working with Jan. She had many milestones there as a result of their care.

Working on the frozen shoulder will be first on the plan of attack at B., along with working on her speech

The disappointing news that Jan received was that she would not be receiving any weekend passes until B. has enough data on her to determine what equipment she'll need, what her immediate needs will be, and until Fede gets the training he needs. Since Jan had just arrived, this was a little hard for her to hear.

To Jan's delight, by 2pm she had already received two visitors - Donna and Anne.

All in all it was a very good day, and Jan was tired but in good spirits when I left her.

Sue