August 13, 2013

Physical Therapy Session #8 Out of 9

Tuesday,  August 13, 2013

The morning started with an 8:00 physical therapy session.  My arm was hurting when I got there and the session didn't help any.  In fact, when the therapist put the heat packs and the electronic stimulator on my arm, it ended up going to sleep.  Doesn't sound like the "stimulation" was keeping it awake.  :)  I did the usual exercises but he set the bike to have some resistance and so it was harder.  I have started taking my Kindle with me to read while I am doing the hand exercises and while they do the heat treatment.  It make the time pass faster.  In fact, I was there an hour and 45 minutes today and it seemed closer to an hour. 

Pinching the pink putty.

 

Wrist rotation exercise. 

This is one that has brought about improvement during physical therapy sessions.

 

Squeezing the pink putty.

See other pieces of exercise equipment that I use each session.

 

After leaving there I headed to the office and had a variety of chores to do.  Ron had a job after I got there and then left on a job in another town as soon as I ate my lunch and he was gone most of the afternoon.  The fact that he does that shows the confidence he has in my new hearing ability.  He had been going out on as few jobs as possible, not wanting to leave me there without his help. 

Much of the afternoon, I was busy in the front of the shop.  I find that just before school starts every year, lots of parents come in to have extra keys made either for their "latch key kids" or for the baby sitters.  I spent time between customers restocking some items, unpacking a shipment, and making out an order for a salesman who will be there tomorrow morning. 

Once Ron returned to the office I spent time in the Immersion Reading (listening to the audio book of an e-book as I read along with it).  I had done a little of that last night, but had not been able to do any over the weekend with our grand daughters here.  I have so many books going right now, I am starting to have trouble keeping straight which characters are in which stories.  I have an Immersion Reading book going in the Kindle Fire and a regular book so that if I am where I can't use the audio, I can just read.  Then there is one going in my regular Kindle and two paper backs.  I do get in Bible reading and hope to soon get the audio of the Bible so I can do my Bible reading as part of my Immersion Reading. 

Again, I feel like I am running out of hours in my days.  While the physical therapist was massaging my arm today, he asked if I was keeping up with the exercises at home.  I have been doing them, although they had only told me to do two at home and now he seems to think I am doing them all at home.  Actually, I am doing most of them at home - a few need equipment I don't have.  Then there are the listening exercises for the Cochlear Implant.  Occasionally I need to shop and cook and clean.  At the office I need to do bookkeeping, cleaning, pricing, waiting on customers, etc.  Then I like to have a little time to sew, write my blog, work in the yard, and write cards to people.  In my spare time, I sleep a few (very few) hours a night.

This evening when I left the office, I went birthday shopping for one of our grand daughters.  Her birthday is tomorrow.  I picked up my supper on the way home.  Ron eats with his mom on Tuesday evenings.  I came home and ate my supper and did more Immersion Reading before heading back to do a little more shopping for some other gifts I needed. 

On the hearing, I seem to have found a pretty good setting and volume for use at the office.  I did fine with all the customers today except one that told me she only wanted one key after I cut three.  I told her that I asked her before I cut them to verify that it was three and she said yes.  I guess she can't hear either.  But I did very well with all the others and don't even remember asking any to repeat anything.  That is good!  I do always try to repeat back the number of keys they request because it is often noisy and I want to be sure I heard correctly.  Of course we have the problem many businesses have of people trying to place their orders while they are on their cell phones.  I also did fine in my shopping, only having to have one clerk repeat what he had said.

When we turned our family room into my sewing room about 4 or 5 years ago, I asked Ron to put in lots of plugs.  I had no idea how many of them I would really need!  At the time I wanted the option to plug things in different places.  Now it is a matter of so many things to plug in.  I have my cell phone, my Kindle Fire, my Kindle, my remote for the Cochlear Implant, the drying unit for the Cochlear sound processor, and the batter charger for the rechargeable batteries for the sound processor.  That doesn't count the battery charger for my camera and Ron's stuff.  This is just the things I charge in the sewing room each night.