LETS GET PHYSICAL

It has been a while since I tore a couple of tendons in my calf. I am recovering well from my ‘sports injury’. That’s what I call it because I was running when it happened and running can at times be a sport. Besides just saying ‘sports injury’ is a lot easier then telling the whole long story. After the doctor said I could stop wearing the boot she told me I needed to go to a physical therapist for a about a month.

I have never had to get physical therapy before so I really did not know what to expect. I will say that I was not very impressed on my first visit. I am not sure what I expected but when I entered the bland strip center storefront next to Package Shipping joint and an Army recruitment center, my first thought was it looked quite akin to a small rinky dinky gym. It reminded me of the sparsely equipped work out rooms they shove off the side of an apartment complex clubhouse so they can put ‘recreation center, full service gym and spa’ on their list of free amenities.

I know they come in all shapes and sizes but my preconceived notion of a physical therapist was someone that is half body builder and half doctor. Mine seemed like a nice enough healthy somewhat fit sort of guy but it was not his appearance that put me off; I could not get over the fact that his last name was the same as a barnyard animal. One that rhymes with ‘fig’. I kept thinking that he must have gone into a career that allowed him to hang around a gym so he could bulk up to fend off all the jokes about being named after a barnyard animal that rhymes with fig. The other thing that stood out when I first got there was that the other therapist working that morning looked identical to a young Jimmy Kimmel.

The first day’s consultation was simplistic and uneventful. Lots of obvious questions like ‘where does hurt’, ‘what do you want to get out of the sessions’ and ‘what do you want to do afterwards’. I was polite but I really wanted to answer “it hurts in that spot where my leg is swollen up like watermelon’, ‘duh, I want to be like I was before my tendons popped like an overplayed guitar string’ and ‘when I’m done I do not want to feel like I got reamed for my $100 bucks a session’. The fact is, I really did not want to be there and was not giving it a fair chance at all.

We finished the $150 cursory chat and he taught me a few exercises to do at home with a giant rubber band-like thingy that looked like a sling shot for basketballs. Two days later I was still very skeptical when I headed in for my second appointment. I kept fairly quiet and spent most of my time listening to the other people. One woman said she had been to two different physical therapists before and neither worked but now that she was self-medicating herself off pain meds she wanted to try again. She sounded like she was daring Barnyard Animal That Rhymes With Fig to make her feel better. He said the right things to her and I started to respect him a little more. Another woman with her teenaged daughter wanted the kid’s ankle to heal faster so she could try out for the cheerleader squad although the girl did not seem like she really wanted to and might have been playing up the injury. Again Barnyard Animal That Rhymes With Fig handled both of them in a way that made them both comfortable.



Although I bitched and moaned to anyone that would listen about not wanting to go, I really have to admit that eventually I started to enjoy it. With each passing appointment Barnyard Animal That Rhymes With Fig pushed me harder and I really felt like I was making progress. It seemed like it was making a difference and it was not that my leg was getting better by itself. The problem was everybody in the place seemed so somber. No one ever seemed to talk to each other so I started cracking jokes with everyone else making fun of whatever odd looking balance or stretching exercise they or I happened to be doing. It was kind of like a ‘Breakfast Club’ experience that we all shared. None of us wanted to be there but laughing a little bit together helped us all make the best of it.

I started getting friendly with Barnyard Animal That Rhymes With Fig and Jimmy Kimmel Clone. We shared wacky stories from our lives and made jokes about the other patients. Jimmy Kimmel Clone warned me to stay on the front side of the old man that passed gas whenever he was asked to do something he didn’t like. Barnyard Animal That Rhymes With Fig told me how he was up all night dealing with a dumb neighbor that got arrested in the street out front of their house. I made bad jokes like how uncomfortable I was when I saw the pens at my doctor’s office were supplied by a funeral home; “I don’t mind the drug companies giving them all sorts of freebies but I do not want my doctor in the pocket of some funeral home drumming up business for some mortician.” Eventually Jimmy Kimmel Clone asked if I could hurt myself again so they could keep me around everyday. .

So this past week I finished with physical therapy. I have to continue my exercises and take it very slow for several weeks but with any luck my Boot-Boy days are behind me for good. . I should be back to my normal routines at some point in May. Of course on the last day of my therapy the bright side to this whole mess emerged. Barnyard Animal That Rhymes With Fig offset all the time and money spent by giving me a free white T-Shirt with their logo on it. I might have to move into a bubble to make sure nothing like this ever happens to me again.