Flexi-Touch

My machine arrived Wednesday, so the therapist came to train me on it yesterday and helped us unpack it all. It's pretty daunting to look at all the hoses and garments. There are three pieces to put on, but the chest and arm piece are now velcroed together to my size, so I can pull it on as one piece in the future. The hoses are connected to the machine, and they don't ever have to be unplugged either now unless I need to pack it to travel. I'm thinking I might not ever do that. It would take up my entire small suitcase.

She got me all connected and had time to run about 30 minutes worth of the 66 minute procedure while she talked to us about it. I must admit that the sensations were pleasant. It's kind of hot because it's thick, fuzzy material. My arm was sweaty when I took it off.

She stayed about an hour and a quarter, had me sign some papers, told us to watch the DVD that came with it, and left. We had to run out because we were already late for meeting our friends for dinner. When we came back from dinner, I climbed into the garments and ran the whole program. Just about the time I was going completely stir crazy from lying still on my back, it ended. Fortunately Mark was able to prop the laptop up on his tummy, and we watched our Star Trek: Enterprise episode for the day. It was having problems with downloading, so it really took up almost the entire time period.

When I took the garments off and stored them and the machine all under the bed, I realized that not only did it feel very pleasant, but it also seemed to have worked. I have not been wrapped in the big bandages since Saturday night when I removed the last set put on by my therapist. I had spent a large part of today not even wearing the compression sleeve because I went swimming and had my mani/pedi. I was starting to feel a little pain in three of the knuckles of my hand and a little fullness in the back of the hand and forearm. I did the manual drainage five times yesterday, but I still felt that it wasn't quite enough. The machine definitely made a difference in how the arm felt. Getting a good result from the machine will definitely make me want to use it frequently.

My own lymphedema therapist put in my treatment plan that I should do it twice a day. I really don't expect to have time to do that every day. I'm going to try for once a day. The trainer said that it would be OK to do it once a day, in fact, it would be OK to skip a day or two. If I don't take it on the plane to California in August, I'll be skipping two and a half weeks. I might not even take it to Boston. In that case I would not be using it for nearly a month and a half. That might not be safe, but our car will be SO packed on the way to Boston that I just don't see how I could bring it. We'll see.

Today we are going to have a wonderful time with some old friends down from NY. We plan to take them out to lunch at one of Solivita's local restaurants and show them the community. They have a time share in the Orlando area and have been coming down to this area every summer for years. Now they are thinking about retiring in another two years or so and moving into an over-55 community. Naturally, we are going to try to sell them on Solivita!