Well,
I had another strange encounter with a physical therapist yesterday. Actually the strange part came when she
invited an orthopedic resident who happened to be in the building over to have
a look at my knee. She confessed to him
that she hadn’t been able to isolate exactly what the issue might be. They discussed my knee and its intimacies for
about five minutes (Hey, I’m sitting
right here, guys). Finally the
resident turned to me and began an examination of his own. He pulled and twisted and prodded the
area. He had me stand on my bad leg with
my arms folded across my chest like one of those old Indian chief
pictures. He assured me he wouldn’t let
me fall, then proceeded to twist my entire body to the right and to the
left. I did OK one direction, but the
other got to me. Next I had to sit down
and he held my foot between his legs, held my thigh with one hand, and pulled
and twisted the bottom of my leg with the other. Oh, and at this point he decided to introduce
himself. That’s when I found out he was
a resident and not just another PT student.
Good to know.
At
this point the discussion of my lower extremity began again, and I was once
again excluded from the conversation. The
key phrase I heard him say were, “indicative of meniscus involvement.” They apparently realized at that point that I
was listening in, so they spoke to me.
Little old me. Actual patient
me. The explanation for the foot between
the legs twisting action? The “hypothesis”
(his words, not mine) was that when I
fell under the chair and twisted my knee, my tibia was knocked off center. He was trying to pull it back into better
alignment. And some of the subsequent
exercises they gave me are designed to continue and then strengthen that
positioning. The meniscus mention was
not something they could verify with just an x-ray. I guess that’s one of those MRI injuries (my words, not his).
Speaking
of weird exercises … the two he added are going to be interesting at best. One is pretty easy. Every time I stand up after sitting for a while,
I am supposed to just rock back and forth to remind my brain (her words, not mine) to keep my foot
pointed straight and my knee over my toe.
Got it. The second one was an
orthopedic resident special. On my back,
one of those big thick rubber band things was wrapped around my thighs and tied. With my heels on the floor and my knees up, I
pulled outward against the rubber band, while at the same time pulling my feet
up and pushing my toes together. And once
I have that going, lift my hips off the ground for 50 seconds (By this time I felt like a Bop-It game was
being played with my body). And do
it all four times. Are we confused yet? I stopped him to clarify that “50 seconds.” He changed it to say a total of 50 seconds
that could be broken down into 10 second intervals. Thank you, kind sir.
So
now I have some things to work on between now and my appointment with the
orthopedist next Friday. So let me get
rocking … and twisting and pulling and lifting and stretching …
Psalms
84:12 says, “O Lord Almighty, blessed is
the man who trusts in you.”
Father,
thank you for people dedicated to finding ways to correct the bumps and bruises
and twists and pulls we inflict upon ourselves.
Bless them. Amen.
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