Rehab Success Story: Carroll Lamb

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Carroll Lamb’s journey at GHRC started about two and a half months ago. If you would have asked Carroll when he first arrived at GHRC if he thought he would be up and walking, he would have said “NO” without any hesitation. It has been a long road with some tough days, but Carroll is amazed at the incredible strides he has made.

It all started in the fall of 2015, when Carroll had gone in to the hospital for his first surgery for colon cancer. At this point in his life, Carroll had never been admitted to any hospital, so grasping the idea of surgery was a little mind-boggling. He really did not know what to expect or what the outcome would be.

After his first surgery, Carroll’s doctor recommended a second surgery to try and get the rest of the cancer. Unfortunately, complications arose from the second surgery and Carroll stated that “I was in a coma for about a week. Once I woke up, I really did not know what was going on.” Come to find out, due to the complications from the surgery, Carroll would now need a feeding tube for nourishment purposes. For some reason the doctors felt that Carroll was unable to swallow properly, resulting in the need for the feeding tube.

After roughly a two month hospitalization, Carroll was cleared to continue his rehabilitation here with us at GHRC. Like many, Carroll was unsure what rehabilitation was going to be like, since this would be his first time. “Honestly, I didn’t know how I was going to even get up out of bed, let alone participate in my therapy sessions,” Carroll stated.

A little over two months later Carroll is tremendously stronger than when he first came to GHRC. He has made wonderful progress in therapy and can confidently walk with a walker with some assistance. His motivation to take this “therapy thing” and run with it was “Ash’s positivity and push to help me achieve my goals. Whenever I was having a bad day, or didn’t think that I was going to be able to do certain therapy exercises, Ash gave me the push to really try. Ash told me there is no such word as can’t and that really gave me the motivation to try and to do what I could.”

Recently, Carroll has been able to eat regular meals and enjoys being able to have some of his favorite foods. From the Front Royal area, Carroll is happy to be going home in the next couple of days. He has had a very strong support system through this whole process and has received daily visits from his children; Dennis, Tony, Debbie, and his brother, Randy.  “My plans are to hopefully get back to what I was doing before all of this, working with my son.”

Andrea Espinoza, OTR/L, his Occupational Therapist, commented, “Mr. Lamb made considerable gains with therapy and was a joy to work with!”

We are so happy to have gotten to know Carroll and so proud of what he has accomplished during his time at GHRC!

By Christina Horan, Activity Assistant