Remember how I totalled the Saab? Well, I was extremely lucky and walked away with minor injuries to my left knee. I don’t need surgery and I don’t have to wear a knee brace unless I’m doing something dangerous* like hiking or tearing down a fence. I don’t have much to complain about, all told. I have to go to physical therapy twice a week and do exercises at home twice a day.
Of course, it’s unlike me to stop complaining just because there’s nothing worthy of complaint. So I started whining to Hubby about physical therapy. The nice therapists massage my knee and make sure that everything’s going well. My home exercises only take about 10 minutes and there’s nothing too extreme. I do get electro-shock therapy** and a sonogram on my knee at every physical therapy appointment, but even those don’t really hurt.
You know what hurts? My muscles. Even though the exercises I do are nothing compared with a ballet class or a gym workout, actually doing them multiple times a day adds up to sore muscles. On Tuesday when I combined a physical therapy appointment and two hours of teaching ballet class into one day, I was pretty much wiped out. A wreck. I walked funny for a few days. And it’s possible that I might have groaned every time I sat down. Or stood up. Or went up or down stairs. Seems unlikely though, huh?
Hubby enjoys laughing at me and my sore muscles. When I complain that my leg hurts more now than it did before physical therapy started, his response is a very caring, “of course it does. It’s healing.” That’s the kind of loving response I get from him. He also likes to tell me that I wouldn’t be good at roller derby with a bum knee. And that I wouldn’t worry so much about the derby girls’ knees if I hadn’t messed mine up. Nothing but sympathy, this guy.
Yes, I’m healing. I can feel that my knee is stronger than it used to be. That just doesn’t change the fact that physical therapy is kicking my butt. At least I know I’m getting a workout, right?
*Dangerous in this context means, “activity which might result in your unstable knee rolling or twisting and re-injuring itself.” That is all.
**Electro-shock therapy in this context means, “something to do with electrodes being hooked to my knee and stimulating the soft tissue to heal.” But doesn’t electro-shock therapy sound cooler and way more punk? That’s what I thought.
