Reinaldo's story
One day, everything started clicking again for Reinaldo Condomina.
It was the day he could actually remember the names of his therapists at West Gables Rehabilitation Hospital. For weeks, the 47-year-old had been reaching fruitlessly for names of the friendly faces at West Gables Rehabilitation Hospital. They included the men and women who gently pushed him to exercise to regain his strength and kept him nourished. Then one day, after countless board games, staged social interactions and even a trip from the hospital to a local restaurant, the names were just there in his brain, waiting. He didn’t need to be reminded who was who.
Remembering was like discovering a piece of the old Reinaldo that had gone missing after a serious car accident months earlier. He’d been at work when it happened. In his native Cuba, Reinaldo took care of chickens on a farm, and in the U.S. he had dreams of one day starting his own business. For now, he paid the bills delivering pizzas. He doesn’t remember much of the crash, but he was rushed to the Kendall Hospital in Miami with widespread injuries. He’d suffered internal hemorrhaging and damage to his heart. He sustained a traumatic brain injury and needed a craniotomy, a procedure that required removing a portion of his skull. He needed a tube and eventually a tracheotomy to breathe. As his stay at Kendall Hospital stretched to a month and a half, he fought pneumonia, respiratory failure and a collapsed lung.
After 46 days in the hospital, Reinaldo felt weak, particularly on his right side, where he had trouble moving his arm. His endurance had fallen off, and his balance was out of whack. He also felt confused. He couldn’t remember anything; doctors called it post-traumatic amnesia.
What was worse, a new version of Reinaldo seemed to be rising up out of nowhere, one he didn’t like. “After my injury, I was saying a lot of hurtful and bad things,” he said. He was quick to agitation, and sometimes his behavior became aggressive. That wasn’t the Reinaldo his wife, Sandra, knew. A consummate family guy – “They are my everything,” he said. Reinaldo used to love to spend hours listening to music, plying local waters in search of fish, paring off for epic games of dominoes with friends and working with the chickens and roosters his family still keeps.
His neurologist recommended West Gables Rehabilitation Hospital. There, a physician-led team of physical, occupational, speech and respiratory therapists could help Reinaldo regain his lost physical capabilities and help return the old Reinaldo to the family he loves.
When he arrived at West Gables, Reinaldo was confused, disoriented and short-tempered with the people who wanted to help him. He couldn’t walk, toilet or dress on his own.
Physical therapists set to work on his balance and walking. They used a computerized system where he played a game picking out dots on a television screen. The game required Reinaldo stand and lean to chase the dots. The work had a physical therapy component – the leaning helped with his balance – and a cognitive component – he had to react quickly to find the moving dots.
To improve his ability to walk, Reinaldo hoofed for miles on a treadmill leaning on straps attached to an overhead support system. Gradually, his gait started to return, and the system compensated for less and less of his weight.
Reinaldo was initially skeptical of the need for speech therapy, but discovered he enjoyed the sessions. In addition to word games, his speech language pathologist talked with him about the need to improve his diet. The right food could kick his therapy into overdrive, the therapist explained.
He spent time in the gym, doing resistance training to improve his ability to stand and perform the daily tasks he practiced. Occupational therapists worked with him on dressing and toileting, offering tips and techniques to compensate for weak muscles. Soon, he was walking with only the assistance of his wife, Sandra.
Reinaldo needed to interact with people to redevelop the parts of his brain that govern social skills. His therapists turned to his beloved game of dominoes. Not only did the game improve his fine motor skills, cognitive abilities and memory, but playing meant recovering a piece of his old life. He took on other patients and his therapists.
“I won a lot of games,” Reinaldo said.
Reinaldo’s team took his need for social interaction a step further. Two therapists, Reinaldo and Sandra left the hospital and went to dinner one night at a local restaurant. The idea from a therapeutic standpoint was to help Reinaldo manage some of the negative behaviors he’d been struggling to control when he became agitated or frustrated with his injuries. But Reinaldo had a great time. He was relaxed. He ordered his own meal and chatted with Sandra and his therapists. All his work playing dominoes and exercising had improved his fine motor skills so he could use his own utensils.
Before it was time to return to his old life, home health care experts performed an assessment of Renaldo’s house to make sure it was equipped properly to handle his physical challenges.
By the time he was ready to return home, he could walk on his own. He could dress himself and toilet with only minimal assistance. And while his memory and cognitive abilities weren’t completely back to normal, that new version of Reinaldo he didn’t like – the quick tempered, easily agitated version of himself – was under control.
He’s reunited with his chickens, dominoes and the people he loves and his dreams for the future.
And he's thankful for his family and the therapists whose names he now can’t forget.
“They really helped push me to be strong,” he said.