Golden Living

You haven’t lived until you’ve lived at Golden Living nursing home.  I checked in on my 57th birthday, January 6.  The average age was 83.  Earlier that week I had been turned down by every other in-patient rehab facility because I was either too sick or too well.

Most wanted me to do an hour each day of occupational, physical and speech therapy for a total of 3 hours. I remember how impossible that sounded.  I was capable of sitting up and eating.

But by my birthday, I got myself in shape. Barb bought me a state of the art walker with wheels, a seat, and all the bells and whistles. This with my wheelchair, my portable oxygen tank with wheels, and I was a man on the go.   I was able to baby step in my pajamas to the hall and into a  nearby tv room to have birthday cake with my visitors. (Jerry and Linda, Tommy and Ellen and Barbara) I weighed 153 pounds.

Parker had to get back to the University of Alabama for important business. The next day, Jan. 7, 2010, Alabama would play Texas in the BCS bowl for the national title...and win.  He wasn't on the field that year, but I would recover and be able to watch from the stands just 2 years later as he took the field in New Orleans for the 2011 vs. LSU and Miami for the 2012 vs. Notre Dame championship games.   Alabama would win both.

I was receiving speech therapy because I had forgotten how to chew. Apparently when you don’t use your jaw for talking or chewing the muscles forget what to do. Occupational therapy (OT) showed me how to put on socks, brush my teeth, and other essential grooming feats. Physical therapy was the tough part, but within days I was curling 2 pound weights and standing on my own.

January 11, I came home. My journal boasts: “Able to go up stairs to bedroom”. That was my goal in rehab, to master those l5 steps. It doesn’t sound like much, but it was a real victory.

An assortment of nurses, physical therapists and occupational therapists continued working with me at home. Eventually I was much better and by March 1 was off the oxygen and enrolled in the North Fulton Hospital outpatient cardiac rehab program. By mid June I graduated and proudly wear the T-shirt. I can’t say enough about the staff at NFH.  Deb, Susan, Sarah, Lynn and the others were fantastic.   They were genuinely interested in getting my life back.

My first day, they hooked me up to an EKG, as they did every day, and I walked on a treadmill for about 4 minutes. After 3 months, I was exercising for over an hour with no problems.

My first day home from Golden Living, Haiti was rocked with a devastating earthquake. Watching the television non stop for days helped put my situation in perspective. I truly have nothing to complain about.