Putting on Shorts

The most important thing I learned during Rehab

Keep in mind I am basically a one-armed person at the moment. My left side was affected during my stroke. And I am right- handed. Getting dressed in the morning is a challenge.

One thing in rehab the physical therapy team insisted we know how to do was put on shorts. This made no sense at the time, but I have learned to appreciate it. We would practice with a massive pair of shorts in the p.t. room and then learn to pull them up—easier said than done. We did this with a grabber tool (pictured below) that helps our injured side.

It is easily the most valuable thing I learned. I wear shorts every day (after all I live in South Carolina and it is Spring ) unless I pay an aide —thank you again for becoming a paid subscriber—to help me with things like this.

Forgive the mess on my dining room table. I am really bad about putting things away right now, as well as dropping things that need to be picked up. Things that you would normally just lean down and retrieve. You’d be surprised at how many things fall to the floor with the help of gravity. I don’t vacuum these days, I retrieve.

I have two grabber tools that I use. A cheap one from Amazon and a much nicer one (pictured) that they gave me in rehab. It is by far the most useful one because it helps you stretch a pair of shorts open to get them over your one working and one non- working leg. When you get dressed think about how you would do this seemingly basic task if injured Yikes!

Would you survive a stroke? Probably, with modern medicine today. Imagine the most challenging thing you encounter and how you would manage that? By the way, Please don’t have a stroke. Keep your weight in check and your blood pressure checked. I could have avoided these challenges if I had been more aware of my body and how to take care of it.

Thanks for reading! I hope this is helpful.

Love, Susan.