Stroke Survivor Blog

Steve will be getting home health care again. A new home health care agency opened up in town, and they offer free occupational and physical therapy, plus skilled nursing care to those who qualify. Presently they only have a temporary license to practice. They need 10 patients under their care in order for the agency to be reviewed and certified from the state of Wisconsin. Once they’re certified, the free care will be discontinued and the insurance will be billed. Steve will be their seventh patient.

We heard about this agency from Steve’s doctor who has a relative working as an OT there. Once he got our permission to share the medical records with the home health care agency, he wrote the orders for Steve to receive more occupational and physical therapy. But the best part is that it will be free and they come right to our home.

Although we have Medicare and a Medi-gap insurance policy which covers most of our expenses, Medicare usually only covers therapy for 90 days, and then it’s reviewed again. But that review process can take months. So if we proceeded in therapy and Medicare didn’t approve, we would have to pay for it out-of-pocket. We couldn’t take that risk. So this is a wonderful blessing to know that Steve will be getting more professional occupational and physical therapy for free. Talk about God’s favor!! Wow!

The occupational therapy is what he needs the most right now. He wants to get the use of his hand and arm back so he can draw plans again. Our daughter and son-in-law want him to design the new house they want to build, so this would be something to motivate him to use his arm more.

What’s nice about the home health care agency is that they are coming to our home and can help Steve use his drawing table again. He never learned how to use CAD software or a computer, so it’s literally back to the drawing board for him! This is just what he needs to get him out of his slump. He needed to find a purpose for his life again.

So needless to say, getting free occupational and physical therapy is a tremendous blessing to us. Steve has been progressing, however it’s not at the rate he wants. He has forgotten how far he’s come, so I show him the earlier videos of when he could barely sit by himself. You should see him go now. Below is a video of him walking without his cane. This was taken on a day when he didn’t have too much pain.

Although it isn’t really safe for him to walk without his cane, he has proven that he can do it. When he uses his cane, he usually bears his weight on it instead of just using it for balance. He should shift his weight to his left leg instead, but he’s reluctant to do that because his knee buckles once in a while. He doesn’t want to risk falling, so he’s overly cautious. But with continued occupational and physical therapy, there’s no telling how far he will go. He just needs to believe in himself.