Physical therapy was often dreaded by other patients. It was called PT by the nurses, but some patients called it 'Physical Torture.' Not me. PT was my favorite therapy, and still is today.
Fred was my physical therapist at the Rehab. Center. I'd had his wife, Karen, at the Hospital for Physical therapy, though I don't remember what we did, even if I remember her. It was just plain luck that Fred was the next available Physical therapist on the list at the Rehab. Center.
Fred was my therapist before he was my therapist. Karen would tell him about this patient she had, and ask what he would do with such a patient. Fred made sure I received potus boots while I was still at the hospital. Even if I really didn't like the boots, I will admit that they helped a lot. When I started rehabilitation, my right foot laid flat against the sheets of a bed. When I left the Center, my right foot was definitely much straighter.
Even though I liked everything Fred and I did quite a bit (which says a lot about my personality), Fred continued to push me to become even better yet. I had only been at the Rehab. Center one day when I could curl my left toes, and about two weeks later, Fred had me already walking in the parallel bars.
I remember, my first step was on a Friday. I was usually too tired by the time it was Friday to do much of anything except cry, but that Friday I felt particularly strong. When Fred told me to take a step, I did, though I was never able to repeat it, not for lack of trying, however. I did remember what it felt like to walk, and I simply duplicated that feeling. It was very exciting, especially since I couldn't quite come to grips with how long it was projected to take for me to recover. If I walked within weeks, then what could I not do? When the doctors said it would take years for me to recover, I figured everybody just didn't know what they were talking about. What I truly didn't know was how long it takes the average human to recover from a stroke. The heart surgery I'd undergone in the past had taught me that I would be in rehabilitation for two weeks, tops. Instead, I was there for three and a half months, which was still a far shorter amount of time than anyone expected, but definitely not the two weeks I had predicted.
On the other hand, I was not the average human. I worked hard, and everything I did in PT, I succeeded at. Well, almost everything. Fred thought that my success was because I was always working, even during the times I was supposed to be doing other things. We started out in the Standing Frame, a stretching machine with an attached seat, designed to make me stay on my feet, and designed to hold me if I couldn't. The Standing Frame stretched out my feet and calves so much that Katie, the last PT intern student to personally work with me, had to put blocks under my feet, and my heels had stretched beyond the point where the blocks were useful, and were touching the machine's floor by the end of my stay at the Center. We also did balancing on a huge ball, sitting on mats, standing in the parallel bars, riding stationary bikes (both with arm movement and without), walking with the Lite Gate (a big machine with an attached safety harness meant to teach any patient how to walk. Though I remembered the concept of walking, the part of my brain that controls large muscle movement didn't), walking in a platform walker, and then, in a normal walker. I liked working with the Lite Gate best of all, though I also liked graduating from it to the platform walker.
Just putting on the harness for the Lite Gate taught me how to roll over onto my right side. I had to roll over if we were ever going to get the harness on right, and though I needed to be able to roll around if I was ever going to get up by myself, which I do now all the time, I occasionally roll right off the side of the bed when I do. Fred, Katie, and I worked with the Lite Gate for a long time, and leaving it was like leaving a trusted friend. When the Auto Ambulator (a huge, computerized machine with a treadmill attached that teaches patients how to walk by emulating the correct gate for walking) came along, I felt like I had to automatically dislike it or be disloyal to the Lite Gate. After all, the Lite Gate was good enough for me, and it should be good enough for everybody. Plus there were fewer buttons to break on the Lite Gate. Everything else was the same as far as I was concerned, harness included, just that the Auto Ambulator was computerized and the Lite Gate wasn't. Now, after spending several hours in the Auto Ambulator, I like it just fine, but by then I was already in the walker, so it didn't really apply to me.
Fred was really good about letting me decide for myself what I thought of the various devices we tried. And we tried just about everything, even walking sideways, because our bathrooms were too narrow for the walker or the wheelchair to fit through the door. Fred and I walked sideways through the chapel door with a chair set just inside the door to bar the way forward to simulate our home. But first Katie tried to get me to walk sideways in the parallel bars, which didn't work because I didn't hear her instructions and got immediately frustrated and started to cry. I couldn't hear anything through the noise in the gym, and it didn't take much for me to cry at the time. In fact, one of my wishes was to stop crying so often in PT.
When I wasn't crying, Fred talked to me. Not just to Don, but to me (many people unintentionally ignore anyone who is sitting in a wheelchair). Fred, and all the therapists and staff at the Rehab. Center, always made a huge effort to understand what I had to say at any given time, but he was one of the few people who did comprehend what the garbled sounds coming out of my mouth meant. If I was in the Standing Frame for the morning session, Fred often spoke to me about anything that came to his mind, though I had to spell all of my answers at first. I was grateful he kept a running commentary going, because even though I didn't say much in return, I wasn't dumb. I still had my mind, and my mind was on the level of any college professor's. Fred, like the rest of the staff, always treated me as a friend and someone who was smart. Not everyone treats me so well even now.
We also talked a lot during ultrasound, when we used a machine to direct sound beams at my weak shoulder. Katie did a lot of my ultrasound at first, but if she wasn't assigned to administer that particular duty, it was Fred who did it. Fred did everything, from tying my shoes to the pedals of the air bike to more 'regular' Physical therapy.
To some patients, or anybody watching, a Physical therapist often seems to be cruel, according to the way they literally push patients around, but this was not truly the case, as any therapist can argue. The pushing people around was, and is, meant to help improve a patient's sense of balance - for instance, I'm still being pushed around a bit, even though quite a lot of time has gone by since I was an inpatient at the Rehab. Center. Fred was never mean - he was simply a therapist doing his job by pushing on me and trying to get as much movement for me as possible. It was the same no matter what we did - if I was in the Standing Frame, he didn't let me just stand there, even though I could have and often did, but we played thumb wars even before my arms could move. He almost always won because I was so slow, but I'm still convinced that thumb wars helped my right thumb to straighten out. He worked my arms as well as my legs, even if I didn't know what he was attempting to do at the time. He worked my muscles on the mat by pushing me over, or at least trying to, and, with his help, I could finally retain my seat without too much bobbing. This was Fred's way to handle patients with balance issues. (Who ever thought a simple thing like balance could be so important?) Then we would show Tori or one of the other therapists my new trick if I had one. But no matter what we did, we tried to keep things light and have fun while doing it.
One way we had fun was to tease outrageously in therapy sessions. Fred, like Don, is an incurable tease. They're both hopeless. However, teasing helped to keep my mind off the things that I was doing, and what I was doing was pretty frightening.
The more danger I felt, the harder I laughed, too. This happened before we learned about labile laughing. Fred earned many Pepsi showers while I was learning to walk, or coffee showers later. Whatever I liked to drink at any given time, Fred received it in shower form, meaning I spit on him. Not very dignified, but it's the truth. Besides crying, it was the thing I liked the least about the stroke. But I couldn't help it, like the crying or saying, 'Nevermind,' so much. I was supposed to say, 'Let me spell it for you,' but often people misunderstood that, too, so that particular idea didn't go over so well. But, at least, we tried.
I walked all over the Rehab. Center, but always with Fred or Don, and we started and ended in the gym. It felt safer with Fred around, always watching out for me. (If only Don and Ellie could be so careful now to make sure that nothing is on the floor, in my way!) Fred was always there to catch me if I lost my balance, as I often did in the walker, and he imposed rules about losing my balance too many times in the walker to keep me safe. He didn't want me to contend with a broken hip on top of all my other injuries! I didn't fall once with the walker and Fred, no matter what I was doing, probably because of the rule to stop if I lost my balance one time too many. If only I would impose that rule now, I probably wouldn't fall as often as I do.
Fred reminded me of Don, which is probably why I liked PT so much. He was a very successful therapist because he was always willing to scrap his program for me when I requested that we try something new. Even if he thought I wasn't ready for something, like the stairs or walking to my room, he would give it a try if I requested it. That way, I did things I wouldn't normally get to do; sometimes I was wrong in the request, but sometimes I was right.
I'll never forget the day that I must have done something particularly well, because Fred commented on it, and he commented on very little. All I had done was stand up, and I had done it wrong, but I was still able to stand with little trouble. To get such a comment, and from someone who rarely commented on anything, was a particular triumph. Unfortunately, nobody heard it except me, though it meant a lot for being such an innocuous statement. I gloated about it until I went home.
There was also the tickling of my feet each time Fred put on the air casts I wore to support my ankles. He always tried to make me laugh by tickling, and I couldn't speak well enough to tell him tickling me was a lost cause. My twin sister had taken all the tickle out of me when we wrestled as kids. But Fred didn't know that, and I couldn't tell him, so the tickling went on. Don finally mentioned that I was ticklish between my toes, so from there on after, I started PT with a goofy grin on my face. The tickling continued until I left.
Fred began each session with the same question: 'What do you want to do today?' and I would answer with 'Anything.' I didn't care what we did. Everything was fun except crawling, or 'all fours,' as it was called. I panicked at the possibility of pain and cried every time I tried 'all fours,' though it never actually did hurt. I was only afraid that it would. Now I crawl all the time, especially if I want to put a movie in the DVD player, but then, crawling was simply something that was beyond me. The crying made it impossible to tell either Fred or Don what the problem was, so they never understood why I cried. They simply thought I was in pain. But I was trying to relax, only they didn't know that. 'All fours' was the bane of my existence, and I got several lectures on it.
I got lectures on other things, too. Fred, like any good teacher, liked to lecture as much as he liked to make rules. Fred lectured on several things, but the most prominent was my knack for saying 'Nevermind,' when people didn't understand me. Fred hated it. Unfortunately, I still say it today.
Fred also blew raspberries and stuck out his tongue a lot at me, both to goof around and to see if I could do it back to him. The tongue was no problem, but try as I might, I could not blow a raspberry back at him. (I still can't do it.) It wasn't for lack of trying, but my mouth just wouldn't cooperate. So he had the satisfaction of being better at Speech therapy than I was, which wasn't hard. Interestingly enough, Fred was intrigued by Speech therapy enough to immerse himself in it. That was how he did everything and how he eventually talked to me. Such an immersion also reminded me of Don, and made me think of becoming a Physical therapist for awhile, but I certainly don't wish to compete with all the Physical therapists around my home town, or one of the best therapists that I know of. No, I think I'll leave the physical side of things to Fred and his counterparts, where they can all teach me exactly what they know - and they teach me everything they know very well!
Next: Lyndsay and Molly