Physical Therapy

I’ve been meaning to post an update on my back for a while so here you go. Two weeks ago, I went into the city for my six-month appointment after my spinal fusion and the doctor said that everything has healed perfectly (hooray!). That means that my L4, L5 and S1 vertebrae – or the bottom three in the spine – have formed a solid and unbendable piece (which did not happen after my February 06 surgery, causing my screws to break). Being solid and unbendable also means unbreakable, at least in terms of physical therapy. So I started last week.

I had two appointments already. After my first appointment, I was amazed at how easy the exercises felt. My back didn’t hurt a bit – only my much-neglected (on doctor’s orders!) muscles burned. And it wasn’t a painful, mutinous burn, but a thankful and long awaited pain. On my second visit, I was even allowed to use a weight machine for the legs, which caused them to wobble as my thighs remembered that they weren’t really made entirely of Jell-O (yuck!). But I welcomed this feeling and even encouraged it again once I got home only to be surprised – my arms, my legs, my back suddenly weren’t grateful. They were angry!

My muscles that had be so patiently atrophying for a year and a half were angry like my back when I got home from the hospital after my first surgery. Before my spinal fusion, I expected to wake out of anesthesia in total and utter agony. I’d been told that I would feel like I’d been hit by a truck. In my first moments of consciousness, I braced myself against the pain. Only it didn’t come. I didn’t feel anything. Literally. I was totally numb from the chest down. I was also mentally numb and the morphine haze left me feeling like I was drifting somewhere above my body. Sure that the hit-by-a-truck pain would start any second, I hit the button that sent the numbing morphine through a tube going into my spine as often as I was allowed – every ten minutes.

As I got up the courage to wean myself off the epidural and transition to pills (induced by the constant painful vomiting caused by said morphine and the fact that I couldn’t go home with a needle in my spine), I expected to feel the residual effects of my truck accident, I mean back surgery, but I didn’t. I’m not saying that I didn’t feel pain, but it was manageable. I guess that’s why they call the doctor’s that figure out your perfect pill regimen pain management doctors. After I was discharged from the hospital – with a prescription for half a dosage of a mild narcotic in an attempt to stave off the nausea – and moving around more (you only do physical therapy twice a day if you’re lucky in the hospital) the pain started to show up.

Just as my first surgery seemed easier then the horror that I imagined, my first physical therapy sessions seemed a piece of cake compared to the warnings I received from several people in which I would “really, really hurt”. And just as I didn’t feel the gravity of my surgery until my second week out, I didn’t feel the effect of my physical therapy until a few days later. But that pain lets me know that my exercises are doing something, and, after all, I expected it so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise. I thought my muscles were eagerly waiting to be put back in form, but it turns out they got used to being lazy, couch potatoes and are going to put up a fight. They were shocked into compliance during those first couple of PT sessions but now they’ve got on their boxing gloves. Which is fine. They don’t realize it yet, but that’s exactly how I want them.

PS - I finished the Mists of Avalon a couple of weeks ago and have moved on to The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (as recommended, again, by Pam). If you have an opinion on the next book that I should read, let me know. I'm thinking something by Philip Pullman. Maybe The Golden Compass, part one of the His Dark Materials series. Look out for posts on a recipe for Pam and pictures from my Bubble Tea adventure with Christina and two surprises!