Liberated
I quit physical therapy on Friday and practically skipped out of the building, so free did I feel after three months of twice- and eventually once- and most recently almost-weekly sessions.
I started PT with the hope of getting some guidance on an exercise routine that I could eventually undertake on my own without increasing my risk of developing lymphedema.
The very same day that I called to make my first appointment, Zach and I were rear-ended (well, sandwiched really), and thus began my unhappy stint as a whiplash sufferer.
The focus of my PT visits went from getting back in shape to, you know, being able to move without pain. And on that score they were very successful. It took about six weeks of regular treatment, but I am almost entirely symptom-free at this point. (I still get the odd stinger in my neck—sometimes accompanied by a lightning bolt of blinding pain—but these are far less frequent and entirely unpredictable. My hope is that they will ultimately subside completely. In the meantime, they are mainly an intermittent irritant.)
The problem was that when it came to the other, much more basic stuff, I didn't feel that I was making much progress. In part this was because I was treated by three different therapists, each of whom had her own ideas about what I should and shouldn't be doing.
One insisted that I needed to wear my compression sleeve whenever I exercised; the other two (and, I might add, my surgeon) disagreed.
One wanted me to do Pilates, which I'd never done before and wouldn't be continuing on my own, even though the whole point of my visits was to develop a routine that I could do outside the PT gym.
The one I liked best, who impressed me with her knowledge and shared my goal of planned PT obsolescence, quit between two of my appointments—I didn't even get to say goodbye.
I finally realized that I was not getting what I needed from these sessions, and that it was time to cut both the cord and my losses.
It's now up to me to come up with an exercise routine—starting slowly but building deliberately. Zach and I are trying out an early-morning walk around the neighborhood as a first step.
We got up at 6AM today and walked for about 45 minutes.
It beat the hell out of the stuff I was doing in PT.
And the company was infinitely better.
I started PT with the hope of getting some guidance on an exercise routine that I could eventually undertake on my own without increasing my risk of developing lymphedema.
The very same day that I called to make my first appointment, Zach and I were rear-ended (well, sandwiched really), and thus began my unhappy stint as a whiplash sufferer.
The focus of my PT visits went from getting back in shape to, you know, being able to move without pain. And on that score they were very successful. It took about six weeks of regular treatment, but I am almost entirely symptom-free at this point. (I still get the odd stinger in my neck—sometimes accompanied by a lightning bolt of blinding pain—but these are far less frequent and entirely unpredictable. My hope is that they will ultimately subside completely. In the meantime, they are mainly an intermittent irritant.)
The problem was that when it came to the other, much more basic stuff, I didn't feel that I was making much progress. In part this was because I was treated by three different therapists, each of whom had her own ideas about what I should and shouldn't be doing.
One insisted that I needed to wear my compression sleeve whenever I exercised; the other two (and, I might add, my surgeon) disagreed.
One wanted me to do Pilates, which I'd never done before and wouldn't be continuing on my own, even though the whole point of my visits was to develop a routine that I could do outside the PT gym.
The one I liked best, who impressed me with her knowledge and shared my goal of planned PT obsolescence, quit between two of my appointments—I didn't even get to say goodbye.
I finally realized that I was not getting what I needed from these sessions, and that it was time to cut both the cord and my losses.
It's now up to me to come up with an exercise routine—starting slowly but building deliberately. Zach and I are trying out an early-morning walk around the neighborhood as a first step.
We got up at 6AM today and walked for about 45 minutes.
It beat the hell out of the stuff I was doing in PT.
And the company was infinitely better.
posted by Jody Rosen Knower at 9:12 PM
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