Exit RCA

Rosalien (my physiotherapist) asked me a few weeks ago what she could do to help me further along. You must know that at this moment I feel quite stable. I’ve the occasional epileptic seizure, headaches and my muscles and joints hurt almost continuously. To relieve those pains I’m assisted by a large team of therapists.

There is psychotherapy (René ter Horst and I can get along very well) and speech therapy. Speech therapy was discontinued (Laurien and dr. Koppe thought it no longer necessary) but last week (to my surprise)  it suddenly re-appeared in my schedule. This week Thursday there is an appointment with Laurien and on Friday there is a full hour appointment with René ter Horst and Laurien van Zeist. Strange! My guess is that Laurien is responsable for this appointment with the psychotherapist and me. What topic(s) we will discuss I don’t know.

In the RCA I also attend also sports therapy (table tennis), I attend hydrotherapy (which is quite exhaustive but I like it very much) and then there is physiotherapy and fitness. Rosalien is of the opinion that I must move on. In the end there are other patients that could benefit from the open place that I leave behind (I fully understand this). So she asked me if knew a sports-centre/swimming pool in Amsterdam-West that I wanted to go to. I mentioned the Sloterparkbad annex Fitness Center to her. We agreed that she would make a letter and ask around and (if suitable) then we (Monling and I) would make an appointment. This all happened two weeks ago.

Monling drove us to the fitness-center on the day and time of the appointment with Roy but when we inquired there was no appointment with Roy (or an alterative physiotherapist) to be found in the appointment book. Some calling around finally produced an appointment: we were in the ‘old’ place whereas we must be in the ‘new’ place. A new appointment had to be made.

Today we went to the new appointment. Roy was still busy with another ‘patient’. He appeared 45 minutes later(too late) and apologised for that fact. We were ushered into a room without windows but with an impressive (read: massive) treatment annex massage table. Roy read the report that Rosalien had prepared for him and decided that I must fill out many forms. Apparently the physiotherapists, the fitness-centre and the swimming pool were, although all in the same building, separate entities. 

I pointed out that our sole purpose of this visit was to find out whether I could get the treatments fitness, hydrotherapy (swimming one-on-one) and physiotherapy in the Sloterparkbad annex fitness center annex physiotherapy centre or not. We make another appointment for that to allow Roy to measure my performance and endurance and other key parameters. He will the next time also report back on the result of his discussion with his boss about the hydrotherapy (I really need somebody who keeps an eye on me because when I get a seizure in the water I will surely drown).  

This appointment is planned for the 17th of July with Roy. They decided that we had to fill out the forms anyway. He followed us upstairs to communicate to the receptionist which forms were required. That confused the receptionist so finally we left without filling and signing any forms. Ahrgg! To be continued.

RCA doctor reports back

Hydrotherapy (Blue faced people didn't want to appear recognizable)

Today we met again with the medical director of the Revalidation Center Amsterdam. He went immediately (without delay) through his reports concerning me. I will now tell you what he told us concerning:

Psychotherapy: I will continue with his therapy but only if necessary. I need him less and less. The psychologist will reserve a weekly slot in his agenda for me that I may fill anytime. I plan to see him at least every month because I like to get feedback on how I (have to or want to) deal with topics like the end-phase, dying, euthanasia and donating my body to science.

Speech Therapy: I could tell him more than he could tell me. I knew already that my psychologist had urged the speech therapist for continuing with speech therapy (logo-therapy). My problem is that I fail to see wrongly spelled words and I can’t detect words that I omitted to write. After the explanation from my psychologist my speech therapist changed her report.

Writing Therapy: Also this time I had more up-to-date information for the medical director. I had given up writing therapy because the writing therapist ordered me to also write more frequently at home and I had to bring samples from before the surgery. They showed a remarkable and unexpected result: my handwriting now is better than before.

Physiotherapy: I wanted to continue with this and dr. Koppe (medical director of the Revalidation Center) agreed. So I may continue with Physiotherapy,  Hydrotherapy, Sports Therapy (fitness, badminton and table tennis) and riding a bi-cycle or tri-cycle.

All in all not a bad result! Thanks dr. Koppe!

Hydrotherapy

Already many weeks I’m asked by my physiotherapist whether I’m interested in hydrotherapy and, if so, when we can start with it. I, in turn, ask my neurosurgeons, plastic surgeon and oncologists for a positive answer. That answer came last week from my neurosurgeon, dr. de Witt Hamer, and was positive.

Dr. Philip de Witt Hamer and me

And so it happened that last Monday the 12th of January 2009 I found an appointment for my first hydrotherapy with Rosalien, my physiotherapist, in my schedule for 8:30. My first impression was that the air in the pool building was so hot and humid. Regulations require that I am to be accompanied by 2 persons (they were actually with three therapists plus my wife) in case I get an insult. On top of that the pool has a floor that can be raised and lowered.

Rosalien (hydro-/fysiotherapist) and me

There is pleasantly warm water in it. Nice! What I didn’t expect was that I felt so unstable in the water when Rosalien made me float in the pool and then walk around. I had to constantly compensate for the lack of power in my right leg. Afterwards I was more tired than I thought!