Dear Lucy,
I hear your weather has been lousy. You're in good company; even though it's nearly June, Vancouver has yet to get as warm as Saskatoon was in April! Here's the latest grim forecast*.
And here's the frog photo; you can see he's on the glass railing of our lunch/coffee area, above the long tables where the med students study. (You can faintly see the fishing line that's holding him in place.)
On Thursday I'm going with Dad to his appointment with the Lions Gate Hospital physiotherapists, where he'll get help with his balance problem. He's seen the motion-disorders specialist at the UBC Parkinson's Disease Clinic. They've confirmed that his body's sense of balance doesn't work properly in certain situations (getting up from a chair, turning a corner), but there's no evidence of a specific cause. For years we daughters have been trying to get him to do exercises to improve his balance, but he keeps expecting a medical cure instead. I'm hoping that the LGH physios will finally get him working on the problem himself. He does go to the gym regularly, and a trainer there has recently added some strength training (weight-lifting) to his cardio program. Once he has a formal set of balance exercises to do, I think I'll encourage him to ask the trainer to also check that he's doing his balance exercises.
On Thursday I'm going with Dad to his appointment with the Lions Gate Hospital physiotherapists, where he'll get help with his balance problem. He's seen the motion-disorders specialist at the UBC Parkinson's Disease Clinic. They've confirmed that his body's sense of balance doesn't work properly in certain situations (getting up from a chair, turning a corner), but there's no evidence of a specific cause. For years we daughters have been trying to get him to do exercises to improve his balance, but he keeps expecting a medical cure instead. I'm hoping that the LGH physios will finally get him working on the problem himself. He does go to the gym regularly, and a trainer there has recently added some strength training (weight-lifting) to his cardio program. Once he has a formal set of balance exercises to do, I think I'll encourage him to ask the trainer to also check that he's doing his balance exercises.
Later (June 4): Mom has been feeling generally lousy, and her doctor found that she had a urinary tract infection, so she should be better soon. I (belatedly) remember your telling me that your doctor said that, whenever older ladies are feeling poorly, they should be checked for urinary tract infections.
Dad had a full hour with the physiotherapist. She was very thorough, checking how well he could do many different things. She's working out a set of exercises to improve his body's ability to react quickly to changes in position (that seems to be the core problem), and he's to go back next week. But for now his only exercises are to practice walking in a straight line, and to try to balance on one foot for the ~30 seconds it takes his coffee to warm up in the microwave.
Love,
Rosie
*Later that day: The weather forecast was overly optimistic. The temperature briefly made it up to 12 °C at 3 pm and then dropped back to 11 °C.
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