The SAEBO has been AMAZING!! I am a bit miffed because it has been 5 years since I had my stroke and it has taken me 4 and a 1/2 years to find the 'mechanical hand', meanwhile my knuckles have become subluxation-ed(? I don't know if that is what it is called!!) they have gone inwards and don't work properly and that is a big concern of mine.
I doesn't matter how fantastic a piece of equipment is, if you don't have the correct way of holding it, it won't work properly and that is what is happening with my hand!
It works so amazingly well, that I am very annoyed with myself and my hand because by this time (six months) I should be further along with recovery, however, I am going to be given another injection of botox (botulinum toxin) in May and it will probably the last time as I have been so very lucky to have the staff at RRCS on my side and trying to do everything in their power to help me to recover as well as I can. So, I HAVE to work harder than I have ever worked before, to try and get as much use out of my hand and the Saebo while the botox is in my system.
There are a system of exercises that I have to do each day (I get frustrated and won't do them sometimes because after 5 years, I am so sick of doing them - but then I think about Christina and how her life became so hideous that she felt that death was her only recourse - and after a few days of thumbing my nose at myself, I come crawling back to do my exercises again) with the saebo, they are not that hard but you see, we are trying to teach the brain to go along a different path and explore them in a neuroplasticity way, hopefully, my hand and my brain will end up working together!
So, as I was saying, the hand has to work in sync with the brain and that is where it becomes a bit sticky but the saebo helps and I would have never thought it possible that something as simple as this, would make such a difference to peoples lives. I have to strap the saebo on to my right arm and then I pick up the first ball and put it in the basket, then pick up the second one etc I have ten of the balls and then a heap of different shapes and sizes of 'things' that I have collected over my rehabilitation, that I have to pick up and put somewhere different. At the moment, my aim is to try to make my right arm able to become stronger and stronger so that I can pick up the saebo and put the balls where ever I want. It is starting to come to me slowly, but me being me, wants it to be able to be strong right now!
I can now pick up my toothbrush and rub my teeth in a kind of brushing way, pick up my splayed and use it to put food in my mouth, and kind of brush my hair with my right hand! All of these things are new to me, thanks to the saebo! As you can see, small things amuse small minds but they also help us to feel like we are getting somewhere.
27.4.2012
