Communication

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The last few hours have felt like the most intensive team building exercise I’ve ever participated in. I can handle being in the hospital, and I’m getting the hang of maneuvering Josh around in a wheelchair, but a constant challenge is communication. Josh is able to answer “Yes,” and “No” with hand gestures, but when he needs something or wants to say something more abstract, it can take a while to understand what he’s trying to say.

For example, when he pointed to the wall all I could see is the four or five things that were hanging there– balloons, clock, information card, etc. I ran through everything I could see, until finally I figured out he wanted me to fill out his fluids consumed chart, something that would never have been my first guess without some context..

We laugh at the idiocy of him having to try again and again, and me guessing wrong over and over again. It can be frustrating at times trying to decipher in a few minutes what once took only a few seconds to understand.

So far, it has been a fairly easy going Saturday morning. Josh and I were both up at around six o’clock. After breakfast, we spent some time in one of the activity rooms. We checked out the arboretum on the second floor before we headed back to his room.

Next is lunch, and then Josh will be going into a physical therapy session.