Therapy

Last year, after lots of pain and frustration, I found out I had a a bum knee and a bad back.  That's not officially what the doctor said, but saying "arthritis" and "slipped disc" make me feel old.  She asked me to choose from a list of therapy centers and without doing any kind of research, I picked Kaimuki Care because of their location.  They're on the top floor of the Kaimuki Shopping Center (you know, above Longs and Times), which is a funny place for a physical therapy center to be.  You can either walk up a fairly large set of stairs OR take the elevator and then walk the entire length of the building to get there.

I was nervous.  I'd never been to therapy before and I didn't know what to expect.  To the end, I didn't know what to wear.  Workout clothes seemed too casual, but regular going out clothes seemed too restrictive.  Because you sweat in therapy.  You stretch and do weight training and do exercises you wouldn't ever think of yourself.  My least favorite of those was scooting myself on a rolling office chair down the length of the hallway using only my heels.  Killer!

Anyway, Kaimuki Care turned out to be such a winner.  I saw two therapists, which I guess is unusual, but they were both great.  It worked out for me, I think, to get two different brains trying to figure out my workouts. Working on my pain management and conditioning.  They were friendly and personable and attentive.  They were firm, but responded immediately if I experienced any pain or discomfort.  They listened.  After climbing up those steep steps one day to get there after a particularly pain-filled day, I had to confess that my knee was killing me.  We skipped the exercises that day, and they focused on not just alleviating my pain through massage, icing, and electro therapy, but also in determining where and what the problem was.

Therapy ended months ago.  On my first day, I couldn't even stand on my left leg, no joke.  It was so weak.  And because I'd try to compensate by relying heavily on my right leg, it resulted in a near slipped disc.  By the end of my sessions, however, I could stand on my leg and my back didn't have me wincing in agony.  My therapists taught me the correct way to use exercise equipment as well as how to properly stretch and exercise my target areas.  And when I went in last week to pay my bill, they all recognized me and said hello.  My therapist asked how I was doing and offered more tips to help with the knee pain.

Do you know what it feels like to be liberated from almost constant pain and discomfort?  Do you know how it feels to finally function like most normal, able-bodied people?  Though I continued to go to the gym a few times a week, I'd slacked off on my stretches since we moved to our new place.  Knee got sore again.  Started the right stretches with that damn karate belt (we have a love/hate relationship) a few days ago, and I'm right as rain.  Still wear the brace at the gym, but it's good.

It's possible I might have gotten the same high-quality care somewhere else, but I know for sure that Kaimuki Care does good work.  I'd recommend anyone who needs it to go there.

Sometimes Turning On The Light Helps

I remember when I was in intermediate and high school, there were days that I just knew were going to suck.  There was a certain tang to the atmosphere.  An absence of something or a deepening of space between people and things.  Everything looked and felt just slightly different-- as if I were a person living one of my lives in a very similar but different dimension.  This was not a dimension in which I'd been born a boy or was confined to a wheelchair because I'd been in some horrible accident, no.  It was one in which the differences were minute, where everything LOOKED okay, but really was covered in a fine mist of not--quite-rightness.  Maybe I had a maroon backpack instead of a red one.

And those days were sad days.  Those days were the ones I found it hard to connect to my peers. It was hard not to look at strangers or even people I knew and not envy their lives and the ease they seemed to experience while walking in their shoes.  Those were the days I felt I was going to choke on my own despair.

And for some reason I cannot explain, I feel that tonight.  It didn't start off this way, but somehow, without those signifiers, I feel great sadness for my son.  Not even for myself. For him.  Because I felt that the other day when I tried to register him for school and walked out unsuccessful, and I had tried to deny it.  I had to feign confidence so that Noah wouldn't doubt and lose confidence himself.  But I worry for him, the changes.  New school, new challenges, new friends, and people can be so cruel.

So far, he's been lucky, I think.  I always like to think of him as my adaptable child because he seems to adapt so well to change.  Every state, every school, every move he seemed to bounce back fairly quickly, without the need for a life jacket.  So far, Noah hasn't even shown much hesitation, either.  I know he must worry, but his outlook for the most part seems optimistic.

I just don't want him to have those wrong-dimension kind of days.  I know he will, and I know he must have had some by now, anyway.  It's not unreasonable for a mother to want her child to never feel hurt or lonely or despair.  I remember feeling so miserable some mornings, wondering how I was ever going to finish the day without dying.  Except I also remember that maybe by lunch, I'd found a way to cope and things weren't so bad by the end of the day.  I'd made it.  There are still some days I feel that way, and in fact there were many days in between school and now that I felt that way, and I guess the ones I had back in the day served to teach me how to cope with them as an adult.

I do things now to distract myself, to keep myself from descending into self-pity.  I know Noah will learn the same.  Doesn't mean I stop wanting to protect him, though.