You know, I didn't like the direction things were heading. I'd recently had routine surgery to clean up my torn menisci. Yes, I did such a bang up job I tore both of them in my left knee. But the medical folks had made this "clean-up" surgery sound so easy by now I should've been prancing around like one of the Rockettes. "Give it time," warned Rosemary, my friend and Sister-through-Knees who'd experienced the same surgery in April.
Now I was already coping with the fact that as a new grandmother I could expect things to move a little less smoothly in the physical agility department. But when 10 days post-surgery found me still staggering around on a walker I was desperate. No longer in my right mind I fantasized about adorning the contraption with plastic flowers. Or attaching bright green tennis balls to the legs like the older folks are so fond of. Maybe a cute basket on the front would be pleasing since I virtually needed a Sherpa to lug around the necessities of life-after-surgery such as mega pain killers, gossip magazines (to while away the time recuperating), cell phone and cordless home phones (lurching for the phone and getting there in four rings or less wasn't a good look for me), chocolate (just because) and other important accoutrements that I might require at any given moment.
Then I began imagining my spouse was losing sympathy for me. Now everyone knows if a man feels below par we women play nursemaid 'til the cows come home fetching tea and whatever else to ease the poor dear's pain. I mean, I don't know how it is at your house, but here my intuition tells me I have a 24-hour window of opportunity for any given ailment because let's face it; I married a man who is impervious to disease. The man flat out never gets sick. So when I'm under the weather I suspect there are those at my house who think I'm maybe dragging things out a wee bit much.
Of course nothing could be further from the truth. Why, were it not for my severely wrecked knee, I would be out there cleaning bathrooms with the best of them. But there they were: little tell-tale signs telling me my time of being pampered like a princess was drawing to a close.
Then the cordless phone went missing. "What did you do with the phone?" my spouse queried. Now I ask you: am I supposed to keep track of everything? In all this pain? Not to mention I was still alarmingly pale following the harrowing surgery I had recently pulled through, narrowly escaping death. "I don't know where it is," I sighed weakly. "Well, you must have put it SOMEPLACE," he responded a little impatiently I thought. Now - are there not two people living in this house? Why was it "me" that lost the phone? Ok, so I do get 99 percent of the calls around here, but somebody has to get the other 1 percent - right? So the floodgates opened on the issue of the lost telephone. "Have you found the phone yet?" my spouse quizzed me approximately every five minutes. "Why are you tormenting me this way?" I lashed out. "I'm a sick woman!"
The handwriting was on the wall; I needed to get mobile fast so I signed up for physical therapy. "Oh, that's gonna hurt!" warned one pessimist friend when I confided that I was going to see a physical therapist. But, OK, it already hurt so what did I have to lose here? I arrived at the physical therapy facility ready for a heavy dose of pain and suffering but determined to suck it up and be a big girl. If I had to endure Hermann Goering the Nazi Therapist, I would be a better person for it. Right?
So let's just say I know when I'm wrong and I'm not afraid to admit it. The physical therapist who greeted me pleasantly had not the slightest trace of a German accent and was, in fact, soft spoken and competent. He examined and manipulated my knee. Poised to yelp in pain, I suddenly recognized that this didn't hurt! Not even a little bit. Instead of the pain I'd anticipated, it was one heck of a relief knowing my knee was in practiced, skillful hands.
Tom, my therapist, showed me some exercises that I was to do at home and well, nobody said the road to recovery was easy. Lying on my back and lifting my afflicted left leg into the air via my quadriceps may sound simple except for one minor detail. You've heard that muscles have memory? Yes, they do, which means they also get amnesia. Surgery had left my quads pretty much a lump of immovable mush. I had to relearn how to lift my leg.
Now may I just interject that I am a champion of lifting my right leg except Tom wasn't interested in the tremendous talents of my unafflicted right leg. So I struggled mightily to lift my left leg, sweating enough fluids to maintain a small saltwater fish tank. With this Herculean effort I garnered a lift of upwards of one billionth of a centimeter.
Back home I dutifully practiced my workout before seeing Tom again four days later. And by that fourth day, a miracle. I couldn't wait to show off my accomplishment at my next appointment. Throwing all I had into it, I hiked my left leg a few inches into the air. "And we have liftoff!" Tom announced.
That was a great day and yes, I should probably get out more. But - hey! Now that I'm officially in "rehab" I am feeling quite celebrity-ish. Edgy girl that I am it was just a matter of time before I was imitating the superstars. Now if I could just find that darned telephone.
Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill since 1983. Reach her at galehammond@aol.com.
Gale Hammond Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill 24 years. Reach her at GaleHammond@aol.com.
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