First day of physical therapy. I’m sitting in the waiting room, waiting. Heather will be due out momentarily, I suppose – in the meantime, my brain is probing my body – like a tongue looking for a missing tooth (half-remembered memories of being… eight?)… I’m looking for what? Pain? Relaxation? For the tingling to stop?
The skies have turned glowery while I was in the dark, contemplating the electrodes on my back. It looks like we’ll be driving home in a storm – perhaps more electricity for us.
And I hate the way that all the questions you want to ask the doctor occur to you the moment after the doctor retreats past the receptionist, back into the inner-sanctum.
I wonder what impressions I leave with these medical professionals who see me so nervous, so vulnerable. Does a doctor realize how nervous we are when we come in? Everything everyone has told me about “physical therapy” is that it’ll probably hurt later… so I’m wary in approaching.
“Rehab At Work” is a dingy sort of looking suite – more akin at first glance to the clinics I would visit back in Baltimore, or an office basement gym. A lot of towels are used here, and there’s even a washer-dryer in constant use just outside of the reception area. The women who work here remind me of laundry women – with strong hands `that I guess, in this context, are more calloused from moving over-stressed limbs back and forth than broom handles and laundry baskets. Practical women with practical manners.
There is thunder in the distance – and summer heat waiting outside the windows. Yup, might be a rough drive back.