Now it is time for the worst. Physical Therapy. I am used to my physical therapist, Peter, already, so there is no anxiety about meeting and liking the person who is probably going to cause much pain, as well as an equal amount of relief. Even so, horror stories start in the Schuett house. My first day of PT, before I go in, my sister tells me that getting through the scarred tissue is the hardest and most painful thing that will happen to me during my physical therapy, she goes on to tell a story about an athlete who had a surgery on his knee, and during his therapy you could hear him screaming in pain from down the hall, "But don't worry," she said, "Knee surgeries are the hardest." oh yea, sure, no problem, thanks SHAYLA. So, with that reassuring bit of lovely information I get out of the car, stick my crutches under my armpits and hobble to the door, and then struggle a little bit until I finally have to give in and let my mom open it for me.
I want to explain, that for a long time before my surgery, I had been going into to see this PT for my ankles, before we knew exactly what was wrong, so everyone who worked there (or most everyone) knew me, and when I walked in on my crutches they all stopped to ask me how I was doing and how the surgery went, and even though its not an ideal place, it felt like another part of my family and I felt right at home. I crutched over to the table where my PT was and he stood up and gave me a hug, we discussed everything that went on since I had seen him last, how the surgery went, and the fact that I had to take out my own sutures, and my PT, knowing my personality quite well, laughed for a good 10 minutes before he composed himself, and said very seriously, "Well that's no fun." and then laughed some more… This did NOT make me feel right at home and I wanted to hit him over the head with my crutch, but it is hard not to laugh with him.
So, he gets to work on my ankle. It hurts like no ones business, but I try not to show any pain on my face, not only because my mom is sitting right there, but because if I make any indication that it hurts, he stops and moves on to another tactic that either hurts worse, or doesn't do anything at all, and I want this to get better as quickly as possible. Then, he says we need to break up some scarred tissue. Oh joy. He also says that there are some stitches still coming out. "Oh really? Hmm, I wonder why." I think to myself. Those need to be taken care of as well, he gets up… stares at me for a moment, (when this happens I never know what to do. Do I hold his gaze? Do I look away? Naturally, my instinct would be to make some hideous face, just because that's what I do in uncomfortable situations.). Then he says he knows what I need, he leaves for a couple minutes and I look over at my mom, who is reading her book, I think about telling her I am done and we need to leave as quickly as possible because I am "hungry"… But then I decide better of it. He comes back with a little yellow box and I can only think is that he is going to tell me that I need to hammer my ankle, myself.
He sits down on his swivel stool and takes a weird looking tube that looks like a tire pump, out of the box. "Do you know what they use this for?" he asks me. "Oh yea, of course I do Peter, helloooo. No." I say, he laughs, "This is what they use to extract the venom from snake bites." he smiles. I stare at him. I can't help but think that I have the meanest PT on the entire planet. "Congratulations on your snake venom extractor," I think to myself, "but may we get on with my pain and torture?". He raises his eyebrows at me, and I raise my eyebrows right back, "Ok then." he says, then he proceeds to place the suction on the end of the tube onto my scar, and starts pumping. I stare in shock as the pump tugs at my scar. I am so very unprepared for this pain, because it's not the sort of bruised pain you feel when rubbing an injury, it is indescribable. He twists, jiggles and shakes the pump around until the suction pops off. My skin is left puffy and red, he continues this down the scar, and onto my other ankle. When he finishes, he rubs my scars a bit with some lotion, puts my socks on, get an ice pack, and says, "Have a good day! See you on Thursday." Speechless, I manage to stammer a shaky, "Uhmm, yea. Uh huh, ok." he laughs, and leaves.
This kind of PT (Pain and Torture) continues on for a few months. Of course, there is strengthening and other things, and a good amount of progress is made. I begin walking without my crutches, start driving again, got my license. Went on a trip to Florida, which was probably the highlight of my year, seeing dolphins, basking in the sun, all that good stuff, even though I came back a sun dried tomato, from head to… ankle. (Apparently when a body part is swollen it neither tans, nor burns, this gave my PT more reason to laugh at my expense). I think one of the scariest things that I happened to me early on in my rehab was, one day I was walking to my room and all of the sudden I got the worst cramp in my calf, since it was maybe only a couple days after I was allowed to walk around without crutches, I didn't know what to do. I was afraid to stretch my calf out because of my scar, (I could barely bend my ankle anyways) so I just stood there, then sat there. Then laid there, until it went away.
Physical Therapy started getting more challenging with the level of exercises given. I will never forget the day when my PT instructed me to balance on one foot standing on a pillow… The exercises were long, and tedious and I couldn't help but think that they were too simple for me, but I soon learned how wrong I was. There would be some days where, after doing my exercises, I could barely move my foot. Being who I am, I hate icing, and taking pain killers, even though those are supposed to be a dancers best friend. I cannot stand sitting around with ice on some injury, for some reason it just makes me annoyed. Of course, this is not ok with my mom, my sister, and especially my PT, but even I never told him that I didn't ice as much as I should, he knew anyways. My very first ballet class back, I took with a very beginner level, and I felt like I was embarrassing myself even then. The teacher was one of my first teachers, and she was so kind to me, but I couldn't help but feel like I had let her down. I could barely stand at the barre without falling over. I left the class halfway through, thanking the teacher and the pianist, walked out to my car, got in, and just sat there staring into space, trying to hold back my tears. Eventually, I couldn't hold them in any longer, and they came streaming down my face. "What am I doing?" I thought to myself, "I can't do this, I'm not strong enough to get myself back. I don't have the patience.". I called my parents to tell them I was on my way home.
The next day I went into PT and told my therapist that I should probably just quit because I didn't have the patience and I would just make a fool of myself. He asked me if that is really what I wanted to do, and said "Before getting your surgery, had you known you would just quit, would you have gotten the surgery? And if you hadn't gotten the surgery, would you have said 'I quit'? What was the point of getting the surgery if you were just going to quit, I thought this is what you got it for, so you could continue dancing." he left me speechless, I hadn't thought about it like that. I started crying, much like our many other "Physical/mental therapy sessions" he left and came back with a box of tissues, and laughed, "You're a mess Stacey Schuett, what am I going to do with you.", "Cut off my feet and then tell me to continue" I said, frustrated that he beat me again.
I owe a lot to a lot of people, my PT is one of them. Physical Therapy, as painful as it is, helped me regain my strength and I was back to full ballet classes, with some exceptions, by the end of may. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment