He made me cry today.

Ed is his name. Ed is my physical therapist. And I hate him.

The last lovely thing I got to do in therapy today was a another stretching method: face down on the training table, with my knees just off the edge, and let gravity pull the knee straight. For 10 minutes. When the buzzer rang and I was done, I stayed there and cried for a minute. Or two. One of the techs brought me tissue. After I had regained a measure of composure, I limped out to my car. Ed wisely hid somewhere until I was out of the building.

Have you ever heard that tears are healing? "Let it all out, honey, you'll feel better!" I think we've all heard that from some aunt. I don't believe it. At least not today; giving in to the tears made me feel worse. It made me feel like a wimp. And even now, nearly two hours later, I'm still on the brink of tears just thinking about it.

Warning to my family: everybody better be reeeeeelly nice to me tonight unless you wanna see momma cry.

P.S. - Ed says that if I will hang my leg for 10 minutes every morning and night, my leg will be straight in ten days. I forgot to ask how long it would take if I didn't do it.

Anybody know a good voodoo artist?

Ouch!

Day three of physical therapy got a little less pleasant. I guess the honeymoon is over.

The routine is to add on something new every day, I guess. So today when I got there a young therapy technician by the name of Katie, who is a nursing student with one year left, did the ultrasound deep heat thingy, followed by the electric shock treatment and the mother of all heating pads. Then I did my 15 minutes on the bike, which went rather well, except for one little problem, which I'll explain later. Then I did the wimpy leg curls with the rubber tubing while sitting in a chair, and then four way foot stretching, and then it was time for THE NEW THING.

First, Katie had me walk backwards on the treadmill for 5 minutes. It was at very slow speed, and it wasn't fun. My knee was popping a bit, and it kinda hurt. I had to grip the handrails for support so I didn't fall over. This is supposed to help fix my gait and get rid of that painful looking limp (aka The Lurch). Personally I think they just make this stuff up to keep you busy for an hour so they can charge $$$. At any rate, just as I was getting used to it and doing a little better, time was up. I went back to my exam table to await the next step, which I hoped was ice. I was ready to be outta there.

Then the therapist (aka the Dungeon Master) deigned me with his attention, and pressed my stiff knee toward the table as far as he could until I was gasping from the pain. He asked me to contract my quad muscles, and nothing happened. He didn't look surprised. In fact, he smiled. Then he said, "Okay, we're going to hang you straight". This struck fear into my heart, because it sounded like there might possibly be pain involved. An image of being strung up by my toes flashed through my mind. He must have mind reading powers, or maybe he just saw the brief look of panic that washed across my face, because he chuckled and said, "well, not you, just your knee."

For some reason this didn't comfort me very much.

Then Katie came over with my friend the ice pack, and this other black thing with straps. As she got closer, the black thing began to look more and more like a big heavy ankle weight. Oh. No.

Oh yes. She strapped the ice pack on, then had me lift my leg so she could put a rolled towel under my lower leg, halfway between the knee and ankle. Then she put that big weight on top of my knee! Hello!? That hurts, honey! She set the timer for TEN freaking minutes and as she walked away, said, "If it gets unbearable, go ahead and throw the weight off."

These people are sinister. They are smooth. And they know exactly what they are doing. Because there was nothing she could have said that would have made me more determined to last the entire 10 minutes. I've given birth to four really big babies, twice without anesthesia, little miss Kay-Tee. I can endure anything for a measly ten minutes! I didn't realize I was mumbling out loud until the tech at the next table asked me if I was ok. I smiled and nodded, and then turned up the volume on my mp3 player and listened to "Phantom of the Opera" while I focused on a black speck on the ceiling above me. And then, after only one song, the battery on my mp3 player died. With this method of distraction lost to me, I was forced to dig deep and apply the focused breathing/relaxation techniques from my natural childbirth days. The speck on the ceiling became a birthday candle, and I was going to blow it out. The speck was a distant hut made of straw, and I huffed and I puffed... and then the timer rang. And I snatched that black abomination off my knee and hurled it to the ground in triumph.

Ha HAH! Feeling a bit proud of my toughness, I smiled fiercely at Katie as she came over to unwrap the icepack. She smiled sweetly, and then spoke four words that chilled me to the bone:

"See you next week!"

Knee update

On Tuesday I ditched my crutches. Six weeks has passed since surgery, and supposedly my knee is healed inside, and we've moved into the physical therapy phase.

It feels pretty good, and although my gait resembles a zombie-lurch more than walking, I'm happy to be able to get around without those pesky crutches. I'm back to gardening again, and it is actually enjoyable to hoe weeds. Who'da thunk it? My cat is happy that I am now able to carry her around as I lurch to and fro, except for when she decides she's had enough and digs her claws in my back to signal that she would like to be let down now, thank you very much.

My first day of PT was Tuesday. The therapist did an evaluation, asked a bunch of questions, and measured my range of motion. FTR, it was 20 degrees (at it's straightest) to 120 degrees. I know y'all don't give a flying fig about this stat, but I am recording this for my own reference.

So. The next step was to use an ultrasound machine to produce "deep heat" inside the joint. I didn't feel a thing. It reminded me of pregnancy, except there was no video monitor with a shrimp-like thing writhing on the screen. Then he put me on the stationary bike. After a couple of minutes of rocking back and forth, I was able to completely turn the pedals, despite some pressure and discomfort in the knee. After five minutes, it had loosened up nicely and I was pedaling fine. After a total of 10 minutes on the bike, he put some electrode things on my knee to help reduce swelling, along with the mother of all ice packs. And then I was done. Wha? I was a little disappointed - we were barely getting started!

Sheesh. And they billed the insurance company $300 for that. What a racket, huh?

I think the fancy schmancy machines really do make a difference though. I was able to bend my knee further than I could manage by myself at home. It was more swollen and tender Tuesday night, but felt ok Wed morning.

So thus begins 4-6 weeks of therapy 2-3 times per week. Let's get this party started!!!