Recovery Thoughts and PT Woes

At various points during my recovery, I’ve compared my situation to pregnancy, the elderly and newborns. Well, I’m going to add one more family analogy to the list.

Over the past 10 weeks, I’ve experienced several “firsts” -- accomplishments that made me feel like a proud papa: the first time I peed in the toilet, not the urinal bottle. My first shower, with and without the brace. My first steps without crutches. My first poop without the raised toilet seat. The first time I put on my own socks and shoes. My first shower standing up. Driving. The list goes on and on. Initially, I celebrated each “first” like I was Prince in 1999. But each successive accomplishment brought a less boisterous celebration. Now I no longer even notice, let alone cheer, my “firsts.”

And then it hit me – my experience is a lot like the second child syndrome, or the “Second Kid Shaft,” as I call it. The firstborn gets totally spoiled, right? His baby album is packed with mementos. Locks of hair from the first haircut. 12 rolls of film from the first birthday party. Designer pacifiers. The works. The second kid? Ehh, not so much. I vaguely remember saying, “Oh look. Kid #2 took her first steps. Great job, sweetie. Hey, isn’t Roadhouse on TNT now?” And that’s how I feel right now. I’m taking every new milestone for granted.

Ok, time to share my PT woes. Monday’s session was brutal. Two weeks ago Judy measured my knee flexion at 116 degrees, about where it needed to be. I asked Judy for another measurement on Monday so I could gauge my progress; I’m supposed to be at 120-125 degrees. My knee, however, wasn’t cooperating. It was stiff, like a creaky old man struggling to get off his rocker. I probably over-extended myself a bit on Sunday taking the kids to the playground and loading baseballs into the pitching machine. I wasn’t break-dancing or anything, but I did spend 2 hours straight on my feet, and perhaps that was enough.

Judy was determined to loosen up my knee. Her initial efforts, however, failed to produce the desired flexion. About 45 minutes into our session, she declared, “we’ll need to work on it some more after you finish your exercises. The flexion’s just not there, so it doesn’t make sense to measure it now.” Sounded like a good gameplan to me.

I plowed through the rest of my leg lifts and baby step-ups without incident, and then I hopped onto the bike for 10 minutes to loosen up again, before returning to the dreaded stretching table.

Judy’s expression announced her fierce determination to massage my knee to 120 degrees. Uh-oh. I felt like one of those captured Vietnam War soldiers in Missing in Action. In my middle school dreams, I was always Chuck Norris, delivering a roundhouse kick the prison camp warden. This time, however, I knew I was one of the wimpy privates groveling for mercy. I would’ve thrown the rest of my squadron under the bus if that meant saving my own skin. If you get stuck in a foxhole with me, we’re both screwed.

Prone on the table, Judy towered above me. She latched onto my ankle, slowly pushing it toward my body, gripping my thigh for increased leverage. Basically, my knee felt like an accordion. She gradually bent my leg further, until it reached a certain point where any further and I would’ve gone into shock. Unfortunately, that point wasn’t the desired 120+ degrees.

If Judy’s therapy room was the prisoner camp, this would’ve been the scene where I begged for mercy from the prison warden. Or asked Chuck to roundhouse kick Judy. Either one works. But Chuck wasn’t coming to my rescue. Instead, I was powerless as Judy tried to bust through my breaking point.

I learned something about pain, and I’m not talking about the “soreness” you get after a hard workout. This is real pain, the kind of pain that produces involuntary reactions. No matter how hard I tried, each time my knee reached a certain point I (a) lurched off the table, and (b) screamed out whatever word was on the tip of my tongue. Because I have a potty mouth, that normally meant some version of the f-bomb. Dropping f-bombs, of course, won’t endear me to Judy, and I really didn’t want to upset or offend her. After all, she was the one bending my surgically repaired knee. But despite my best breathing techniques and other Jedi-like relaxation exercises, I couldn’t control myself. It was kinda like Tourette’s Syndrome mixed with f-bombs. The obscenities were coming, rapidly and loudly.

Fortunately, I’m a relatively quick thinker. I realized that my word choice was involuntary – I’d blurt out whatever was on my mind at the precise moment the pain kicked in. So I decided to clear my mind of everything but the one word I’d scream out. I tried to pick something benign, like Dan Ackroyd did at the end of Ghostbusters. It didn’t work out exactly as planned, though the Stay Puff Marshmellow Man didn’t show up. Despite focusing intently on surfing and the ocean, I wound up screaming out various versions of the Lord’s name. They weren’t the best choices in front of a religious lady, but at least they didn’t rhyme with “brother-trucker.”

Despite Judy’s best efforts, my knee bent only 115 degrees, about where it was 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, this was a “difficult” 115, unlike the relative ease with which I hit 116 the last time we measured. Ugh. Looks like I’ve got some more torture sessions in my future…