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When a neurological disorder left doctor's wondering whether she would ever walk again, Myrtle got motivated.
It started in January 2009, when snow and ice blanketed the city of Halifax, forcing schools to close and many people to stay indoors.
Myrtle, 85, was one of those who was housebound, opting to do her exercise inside rather than venture to the pool where she had been going for years. She walked the upper hallways of her apartment building instead.
The widow and mother of five was in good shape, so she was surprised to quickly tire that day. She took the elevator back down to her floor, instead of the stairs. Her surprise turned to fear as a feeling of numbness overtook both of her legs within a few hours.It soon crept to her neck.
On the advice of the doctor on duty at the nearby walk-in clinic, she headed straight for QEII Health Sciences Centre emergency department at the Halifax Infirmary site.
After two weeks of tests including a spinal tap, she was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a neurological disorder caused by inflammation in the spinal cord. It can cause the loss of spinal cord function over several hours to several weeks. She was in pain. She was paralyzed and she didn’t know whether it was permanent. She was told that she might never walk again, and if she couldn’t walk, then she couldn’t go home. She’d have to start preparing for a move to a nursing home.
That was all it took to motivate Myrtle.
“If I had to walk to get home, that’s what I was going to do. There was no way I was going to listen to anyone say I’d never walk again.”
She moved to the Nova Scotia Rehabilitation Centre, where “everything they wanted to teach me, I wanted to learn.”
After weeks of rehab, she learned to walk again. One day in the shower, she finally felt the warm water run over her legs, and she cried out to the nurse.
“She was so excited for me that she jumped into the shower and gave me a big hug,” she says with a laugh.
“It was miracle after miracle when you think of it.”
Now comfortably back in her own home, she relies on her close family and Continuing Care services to give her the life she wants, in the place she wants to be. Pictures of her family adorn the walls and tabletops of her home. A flat-screen TV centres the room, and she points to a plastic bag filled with DVD movies. “Even the library has home delivery service. Everything comes to me, and that’s so beautiful.
“Without my team of caregivers, I wouldn’t be able to stay home.”
She praises the Northwood home support workers who visit her daily. They help her bathe, dress, prepare meals and do household chores. She sleeps in a special bed with rails, has a personal alert device in case of an emergency, and has two wheelchairs; her late husband’s manual version and a new one she calls the Cadillac.
“Bernadette is teaching me how to use it,” she says, referring to her Continuing Care rehab assistant. “My goal is to take it up the hill to church by the summer time.
“I’m also back at the pool,” she says. “My Care Coordinator Amanda set it up for me. She is so awesome. She just blows me away.”
Every Thursday a car service for seniors takes her safely to and from the pool, where her Northwood caregivers help her get in and out of the water.
“We don’t have many 85-year-olds asking to get to the pool,” says Amanda Gwisdek, Myrtle’s Capital Health continuing care coordinator. “She had to give up the pool a while ago because she couldn’t find a consistent volunteer to help her. We had to come up with a creative solution to help her get back in the water. The exercise has been paramount in improving her mobility, which supports her independence.”
“I’m grateful to stay in my own home,” says Myrtle. “When I was at the rehab, I saw a young man missing both of his arms and his legs. Thinking of him reminds me of how lucky I am.”
Myrtle (top), 85, is a Continuing Care client. Below, she sits with her care co-ordinator, Amanda Gwisdek.
