I am so excited. Today I get to start physical therapy. No longer will I be that couch potato growing roots into the cushions. Now I will be active and on my way to getting this new ACL in my knee working. Yes!
I clip clop with my crutches across the parking lot envying those people with handicapped stickers in their car, head for the elevator, and go upstairs to Beck and Cale’s office. I know this place. I went here after I injured my shoulder jogging with my weimaraner years ago. Their expert staff is as sweet as my favorite, chocolate raspberry truffles.
Physical therapy centers are a lot like gyms with weights, exercise balls, and a stationary bike or two. But they also have multiple exam tables, stability bars, and rolling carts with ultrasound machines. All around therapists direct patients in squats, finger stretches, shoulder rolls, and other strange-looking exercises.
I’m ready. I head inside imagining working out on the bike until sweat drips off my face. Unfortunately my knee is not. Instead I do a few leg lifts, band exercises, and one where I press my foot into the ground. I have to wait two weeks for the bike.
I try not to look too disappointed as I follow Don Cale’s directions but finally blurt out what a drag it is . Then he patiently explains, in words I’m sure he’s used thousands of times before, that although the holes in my knee are small, it’s still surgery and I need to give the knee time to heal. I nod and vow to make that my summer’s work.
Next, they apply adhesive electrodes beneath a cold wrap and I watch my tingling muscles twitch. The electrical current is at the maximum I can bear so I grit my teeth, try to focus on fluff inside People Magazine and tell myself that it will all be over soon.
Thankfully it is and as I hobble to the elevator I realize that, just like writing, recovery takes place one page at a time.
Laurie Woodward 