Celebrating Success! William Returns Home
William was admitted to The Bostonian in September 2024 from his own home, at age 81. He was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain his home and take care of himself and diagnosed with failure to thrive. His plan was to stay at the Bostonian temporarily until he sold his home and had enough equity to move to an assisted living facility.
In December, William became ill with Covid and pneumonia and was transferred to the hospital where he stayed for 9 days. He returned to The Bostonian, but had to go back to the hospital for more than 2 weeks due to ongoing respiratory complications, shortness of breath and low oxygen levels. When he came back to The Bostonian the second time he was on 3-4 liters of supplemental oxygen and required extensive assistance to get to the edge of the bed, transfer to a wheelchair and to perform self-care tasks such as bathing and dressing. He tolerated sitting up out of bed for only 1 hour a day.
William was evaluated by Physical, Occupational and Speech Therapy who worked with him for seven weeks. William’s progress was slow and steady and even on days he was not feeling well he forced himself to get out of bed and try. William would often state during his treatment sessions “human beings are capable of doing much more than they do,” and “with determination and hard work anything is achievable”. At time of discharge from rehabilitation therapies, William was almost completely off of oxygen. He was able to ambulate independently with a rolling walker and perform all self-care tasks without assistance.
At about the same time that William was discharged from therapy services, his house was sold. William achieved his goal and moved into a local assisted living facility. Congratulations William! Your hard work paid off!
