The arc of physical therapy begins

While reserving the right to change my mind, retract whatever I say here or at least amend it, I think physical therapy requires an awareness of self at a different level than I have known.  I see the lifelong me growing smaller in the rear view mirror.  This is not to disparage how I am or have been, but to notice how much more there can be, in ways never imagined.

I am moved and inspired by stories of triumph over adversity and don't feel comfortable calling my challenged mobility adversity.  I thought I knew, thought I was capable of comprehending the enormity of spirit demanded of those who push beyond comfort, beyond what might have been limits.  I had no idea.

Yesterday, noting the abundance of books that live with us, the therapist spoke of Dr. Oliver Sacks' work, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.  What was most meaningful to her was not only the way in which Dr. Sacks shared his stories, but THAT he shared them, that he saw in each human drama information and expansion that would benefit and teach us all.  I first read the book years ago.  Here is some information from the official Oliver Sacks site:

Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat
Here Dr. Sacks recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders: people afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations; patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks’s splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do.

Dr. Sacks on Hat:

“Short narratives, essays, parables about patients with a great range of neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions, written in a lighter, more informal style than I had ever used before. To my intense surprise (my publisher’s too!) this book hit some nerve in the reading public, and became an instant best-seller.”

The lesson, everywhere in everything and that is not an exaggeration, is always love, is always compassion.  We are given the most flamboyantly disguised opportunities to become altered, altered being a desirable state.  I have written three words, among tips and directions to help me remember how a particular exercise is supposed to look and feel, at the top of my work sheet.  To keep me in my body, on task and out of my weasel mind, they are EXTENSION, ENDURANCE and OPPORTUNITIES.  I guess there will be additional reports from the road.  xo

Physical therapy

This morning I had my first session of in-home physical therapy.  I cried three times:  first when I was shown than I could pull my foot back and kick better than I had imagined, second with the relief that comes from knowing I don't have to figure this out all by myself and third at the mere thought of perhaps, one day, again dancing a step or two.  The therapist reminded me that not all dancing is done standing up.  I will keep my options open.

We begin where we are.  We work with what we have.  We work and we work some more.  I began the exercises last Thursday and can tell I am able to do a bit more.  Life has this galling ability to cloud the mind, to make it seem as though everything has to be done right now, to send us into overwhelm which is the last stop before paralysis.  I have never been here before.  On my best days I need to sit and collect myself, my thoughts, my possibilities and then I need to sleep.  Much to be discovered, more to be revealed.  It is the first day of kindergarten.  I may cry again before the day is over.  I have no problem with that.

Blessings for all who help us, in their unique and necessary ways, become more than we thought we could.