Or for those in the know, physical therapy. Today was my first session, and I was excited. I have been waiting for this since I got the order and made the appointment. This is the first thing to tick off in my “get back to normal” checklist. What I was not expecting, is to be scared. I have anxiety anyway, and I generally don’t like new things. But for some reason, I was legitimately frightened. Heart pounding, stinky sweating, dry mouth, eyes wide terror. It was also the first time I drove myself anywhere since the accident, and we had gotten 4+ inches of snow. I don’t have a handicap tag, and the thought of navigating an icy parking lot on crutches… It was giving me injury flashbacks.

And then, into the office, the doubting starts. “He’s not going to take me seriously. He’s going to think I’m fat and lazy. He’s going to think that if I just get to walking, that’s good enough.”. The therapist was about 12 years old, the Doogie Houser of physical therapy. He was very nice, talking me through the injury, the plan, and then we began the exercises. I think he was surprised at how well I could do straight leg lifts, and I was thinking how easy this all was. Then he had me try to bend my knee. It was like there were rubber bands in my knee, and as I tried to bend it, they quickly tightened painfully. The joint is measured in degrees. My right knee could bend to 120 degrees. My left knee made it to 60. As Doogie helped me possibly stretch further, with deep breathing, to 75. Still 45 degrees away. 4 easy exercises and 1 impossible one. I was thinking there would be a lot of exercises that would be hard for me, that I would have to work on each one to get better and better. Instead it’s a lot of leg lifts in all planes, and trying to bend my knee. Who would have thought that I would struggle to bend my knee?

Not figuratively, of course. It is reminescent of Game of Thrones, as if I can’t pledge my allegiance to the dragon queen. I am not injured, I just refuse to bow before another. Sure.

Doogie is going to see me back twice a week. I don’t know how this is going to help me put weight on my knee, but that’s why he’s the specialist and I’m the one with the torn ligament. I’m not sure how much progress I need to make before surgery. There are still so many unknowns. But it’s one step closer.