I’ve already made this pretty clear that I want to speed this up, and I’m itching to get out of this immobilizer, off these damn crutches, and back to running and swimming and biking. In my second PT session, I made the gripping realization that not all physical therapists are the same.

Now I know it sounds stupid, of course they’re not! But I guess I figured that there was a set plan, a certain number of exercises that will go over a certain amount of weeks, and I should make X amount of progress. This week, as I was trying to distract myself from the pain of bending my knee, we were making small talk. I asked him where he liked to snowboard, and he mentioned some local places, and then some places in Montana, Vermont, California. I realized he doesn’t just like to snowboard, he REALLY LIKES to snowboard. So much that he plans vacations around it. A light was glimmering in the darkness of my brain, but it still didn’t turn on fully.

Then, as I’m wrapping up for the day, he’s going over the exercises we did, and I ask about trying to put weight on the gimpy leg. He looks at me with a bit of energy and says, “want to try walking with just one crutch?”. I was stunned. All I had to do was ask? If this was an option, why didn’t he bring it up? But absolutely, I walked about 10 feet away and then back, slowly, with the knee wobbling a bit. The wobble is now more of a jiggle and less of a sickening slide in the joint. Slightly more reassuring. I did it though! I walked with one crutch, on the second day of therapy! I was flying high, and still I didn’t put together the full picture of my dpt.

The next day, as I’m going through the exercises, it hits me. The light switch flipped. Brooks (yes his name is Brooks, I’m sure he has a young Republican card in his wallet and uses more hair product than me) is an adrenaline junky. He snowboards down crazy mountains, he obviously works out a lot, and he lets me push my therapy limit. I have a very good feeling about this. He’s not going to let me injure myself, but he’s not going to hold me back either. If I want to try something or if I say I can take more, he’s going to let me go for it. I’m cautiously optimistic for the first time in this mess. The idea that I can exceed the treatment plan, that I can do more than what is expected or recommended, that’s pure athlete adrenaline junkie, and he’s all in. Let’s do this!