Day Thirty-Four
Today was my first out-patient physical therapy visit that wasn't in the pool and the physical therapy that my recovered knee replacement comrades still talk about. The physical therapy for which surgeons prescribe the pain killers. Up until today, I've pretty much had control over my stretching, bending, pulling...basically, how much I've wanted to hurt...but therapist Vinny (no relation) showed me there is a whole other level of discomfort I was subconsciously avoiding.
He started out by having me sit on the table with my legs straight out in front of me while, from the top, he pushed the back of my knees into the table, one at a time, with what I could have sworn was all his weight. It's called working on the extension which the PA told me last week couldn't be any better?
When I came to, he was trying to sneak my heel back to my butt a little at a time. I was still lying on the table but my this time my knees were bent like I was doing girl-sit-ups.
"How does that feel?"
"Great," I grunted while clutching the sides of the table to keep from slapping him.
Once he got my heel as close to my butt as it was going to go, he held my foot in place with his hip while he took way too long to measure the flexion. 115 on the right and he guessed 120 on the left after dropping the calipers just before he got a good look at the numbers but knew better than to mention trying it again. Just getting it to 115 or 120 isn't bad, it's the holding it there that makes me nauseous.
After the hour of torture he told me that my progress was "right about here" with a shoulder height, horizontal hand signal across an imaginary vertical scale that I took to mean 'about average'. What happened to the top 80% Dr. Huber? Then he said that the only thing that was really bad...I don't think he actually said 'really bad' but that's what I heard....was my gait. How can something I've been doing since I was one be so difficult?
I asked him what I should do for my PT at home this afternoon. He said to play it by ear and that I may not be able to do much of anything given what I'd done with him this morning. Of course I knew that would never be the case....but it was.
He started out by having me sit on the table with my legs straight out in front of me while, from the top, he pushed the back of my knees into the table, one at a time, with what I could have sworn was all his weight. It's called working on the extension which the PA told me last week couldn't be any better?
When I came to, he was trying to sneak my heel back to my butt a little at a time. I was still lying on the table but my this time my knees were bent like I was doing girl-sit-ups.
"How does that feel?"
"Great," I grunted while clutching the sides of the table to keep from slapping him.
Once he got my heel as close to my butt as it was going to go, he held my foot in place with his hip while he took way too long to measure the flexion. 115 on the right and he guessed 120 on the left after dropping the calipers just before he got a good look at the numbers but knew better than to mention trying it again. Just getting it to 115 or 120 isn't bad, it's the holding it there that makes me nauseous.
After the hour of torture he told me that my progress was "right about here" with a shoulder height, horizontal hand signal across an imaginary vertical scale that I took to mean 'about average'. What happened to the top 80% Dr. Huber? Then he said that the only thing that was really bad...I don't think he actually said 'really bad' but that's what I heard....was my gait. How can something I've been doing since I was one be so difficult?
I asked him what I should do for my PT at home this afternoon. He said to play it by ear and that I may not be able to do much of anything given what I'd done with him this morning. Of course I knew that would never be the case....but it was.
posted by Kathy at
10:00 PM
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