Rehab Redefined

I don’t know if anyone else is like me, but I had never heard of “rehab” until about a year ago, when my grandma went to rehab after suffering a nasty fall. I thought rehab was a euphemism for a temporary nursing home, since my grandma is in her early 80s. So when my UCSF care manager encouraged me to consider going to rehab rather than straight home from the hospital, I was kind of insulted. I can’t explain why I changed my mind, except to say that God intervened because once again, he knew what was best for me far more than I did. Little did I know that going to rehab would be the best thing I could do to advance my recovery.

If you, too, are unfamiliar with rehab, let me clear things up for you. Rehab bears little resemblance to a hospital, let alone to a nursing home. All rehab facilities and nursing homes provide a different experience for the patient depending on the level of support needed, so I received much less help than others at my rehab facility, and I’m sure that some people receive less help at nursing homes as well. But at my rehab facility, we walk to and from the gym for 6-7 daily sessions of intense physical and occupational therapy, walk to all meals at the dining hall, bathe ourselves daily, and ask for help rather than expect it. My experience of spending 5 days in rehab strengthened me and made me ready for home.

Without rehab, I could have survived at home while struggling to perform daily tasks, but the constant difficulties would have taken away the enjoyment of being home. With rehab, I was prepared for these challenges and could focus on gaining strength and being with family rather than struggling to dress myself and use the bathroom. I’m already planning to go to the same facility after my bilateral knee replacement, which will be sometime within the next couple years.

Now that I’ve extolled the benefits of rehab, I feel free to take the next few posts to expose its strange moments and quirky staff :).