P.T.& Me

When I was at University I used to have the recurring nightmare that I three quarters through the semester and I realize that I have never been to one of the classed I had register. I think this is kind of a variation of the being in class naked dream. I would always be so unnerved when I woke but very thankful that “it was only a dream. I have been having that “un nerved” feeling all week like I was forgetting something important. Sure enough Dianne called me this morning and advised me that University Rehab had called to remind me that I had a 1:00 TODAY AT 1:00 PM!! This was a shock but made sense and also quieted my premonition that I was forgetting something. Luckily I brought my van into work today because we have an event tonight.

I left work at 12:00 and zoomed up to the university, found a parking place and was trying to get into a bathroom before my 1:00 o-clock when my therapist saw me and asked me what I was doing there so early. So early! I asked what he meant and he informed me I was scheduled for a 4:00 O-clock. A 4-O-clock?!! Great I was in no mood to hang round University Medical Center for three hours. I fell back on that great old not responsible crutch by just saying…”I just got a call and this time ios what they told me”; The faceless, unknown “they”. Lucky for me the therapist was able to switch some things round and was able to take me at 1:00. What a shock.

What was even more of a shock was the work out, the first real physical therapy I have gotten on decades. A lot of basic stuff but real physical stuff and stuff I was not ready for. Randy is my PT’s name. He is a good guy and really seems to know his stuff. Randy did a lot of resistive stuff in the upper extremities. You know like holding my arm down then telling me to lift it up—or have my arm extended and have me pull down on my arm while he tries to hold the arm up. Then he had be transfer out of my chair on to the mats and try to resist him pushing and pulling me. And then he had me do push-ups and this was a killer. Randy has this P.T. student assisting him so we had this guy hold my legs so the legs would not “spazz” out from underneath me and then I would do the depressions—boy that was hard my arms were just about giving out at that point. I was glad to do fakey flakey dips, you know where you just sort of bend your arms and then lock them in place again—but Randy was ecstatic for me filling me up with all this “raw,raw” P.T. fake support and I of course ate it up just like a new crip performing for the first time.