Going for a walk

This afternoon, Shirley got up and took her for her first walk.  It's a rather major undertaking considering that she has four chest tubes, a Foley catheter, an IV line in each wrist and another in her neck.  The cords and tubes took about 15 minutes to arrange before she could stand up. And since she was leaving the confines of her nice sterile room, she had the added challenge of wearing a particulate filter mask that made breathing more challenging.

Shirley and her enterauge or two nurses and an occupational therapist walked into the hall, turned left down a side hall and just kept going.  About halfway down the hall, Shirley stopped, pulled her mask aside and asked "how far is average?"  One of the nurses replied "Honey, you are way beyond average!"  She finished the side hall hung a right at the cross hall and another right back to her main hall and all the way back to her room.

After returned, one of the nurses--so impressed with how far she went--found a floor plan with distances listed.  She walked about 94 yards in her first walk a mere 37 hours after surgery!