Just A Few Steps...

I sat in front of the computer in our department to see how many patients hadn't come for their treatment after coming back from my lunch break. Suddenly my boss came to me and called me: hey, come to help me to get Mr.T walk. Come! I quickly followed him to go out after replying him.

Mr.T is our 'old patient'. He is a man in his about 30. The man like him should have a active lifestyle, but not him. He can only sit on his wheelchair,stare at everyone who talks to him. He lost the ability to talk, walk and manage his daily life. Even a simple movement like lifting up his hand is hard for him.

When we came to him, he already stood up under the efforts of a few therapists. However, it seemed that he was not interested in walking exercise.

My boss came to his back and held his back. That is the most important position as most of the patient's body weight will be supported by the person holding his back. I just went to his right side to hold his shoulder. There would be total four people to help Mr.T to walk including my boss and me.

Mr.T looked less aggressive today.However it seemed that he prefer jumping forward to stepping forward. That was also hard to make him stand straight as he kept pushing his body forward. He even put his head on my shoulder and just stopped there.

We kept persuading him to walk. Sometime he might stand straight and stepped forward. I was so happy that i couldn't describe my feeling when he put his left or right foot forward. When he put his head on my shoulder, i just kept telling him: Stand straight...stand straight...stand straight and i kept praying in my heart: May God save and bless the soul in this suffering body...please make him walk...

We all put a lot of efforts in making him walk. When he put his left foot forward, we needed to stepped on his left foot to prevent him from jumping and we also needed to keep giving him hint to put his right foot forward. Sometime he might just lay without any sign and we needed to lift him up again. Sometime he might also released his hand on the walking frame and i needed to make sure that he held tightly the walking frame.

Once he just put his foot forward, i counted in my heart: one...then two... He was managed to make about 7 to 8 steps on that day and we needed to put him back to his wheelchair. I realized that i sweat after putting him back. It seemed we need a lot of strength in making him walk. Even though my shoulder was painful, i was satisfied with what i did.

May God bless the suffering soul in that body...