Tuesday 10 July 2007

Breakthrough: advance, gain, improvement, progress, amelioration, betterment, enrichment, furtherance, headway

Breakthrough by itself sounds too hackneyed to express what's happened, so I've included appropriate synonyms as well (that's what you get on a poet's blog).

The breakthrough the doctors have been waiting for for months has finally come: yesterday Dad stood entirely on his own, bearing his own weight.

When I visited him in April at the last rehabilitation centre, this was the milestone the therapists and doctors were all talking about and working toward, and such has been the case since then. For so long I have heard of good but essentially small measures of progress, nothing that suggested this might happen now.

Yesterday Dad talked about walking, about cycling, as though they were inevitable. Now his walking seems within the realm of possibility. I don't know about cycling, but how I want to feel half as confident as he sounds! It's the best news I've had about his condition since we realised his cognition was returning to what it was originally.

I think he's going to walk again. I wasn't sure before, but now it seems real--and realistic.

Would you believe one of his physical therapists is named Zeus? This feels almost as grand a metamorphosis as those I've read in Ovid. The man three-feet-ish, in bed, occasionally on wheels, is now risen to five-foot-four with two legs. Thank you, Zeus, Miriam (yes, I remember you), and all the others. Thank you.

1 comment:

  1. Great, great news! Thank you Zeus, you know I never forgot you. Not so much a school education, just a fan of Greek fact, never fiction or myth. ;-)

    Such fantastic news Carrie!

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