Chop, grate, liquify

I had my second physical therapy appointment today. While paying my co-pay ($15 a visit, twice a week for 6 weeks), I was asked if I wanted to take care of both appointments' co-pays this week right now. "I'd love to," I told the nice receptoinist, "But I just had a $500 weekend for my car and cat so my account is wee tiny (making gesture with index finger and thumb held quite close together) until AFTER Thursday."

And to my total surprise, she said "We do offer a discount for low income patients. You'd have to disclose financial information, but if you want I can get the paperwork for you..."
This was about the nicest thing I heard all day.

The clinic (?) is an odd place. I should preface this by saying I am not even a little bit sporty. I'm about as comfy in a gym as, oh, say Madonna would be at a Promise Keepers' rally.

I noticed on my first day that the set up included a couple of small private rooms and a large room with lots of table-beds, chairs, unindentifiable machines (pullies, wedges, wheels, I think they had all the basics covered), and oversized everyday objects, e.g., a very large green ball which a fellow grad student sat unsteadily on. As I made my way through the large room, I passed a young girl in street clothes sitting in a chair, pant cuffs rolled up, trying to use her toes to pick up marbles and drop them into a cup placed on the floor between her heels. Near the back of this room a middle aged woman in workout clothes was using her body to roll a very squishy looking red ball up and down a small patch of the wall.

It dawned on me a little later that I was just taking it on faith that all of these apparitions were normal in the physical theraputic context. That the people lying on the table-beds, legs wrapped in plastic bags and propped up on foam wedges, watching Grease on a large, loud TV were a normal, necessary element in the everyday function of any given physical therapy clinic, (because what normally happens here would generalize to any other, right)? It's just amazing how fast we build up a schema. When I thought about it a little later, I realized I have no way of knowing if all or any behavior I see in there is theraputic or if it's just someone's somewhat odd way of passing the time.

The first day was just talk, evaluation, and some stretching exercises. Today was a little different. First I got the new kid. She was an undergrad, who, we established before she squirted ultrasound lube all over my exposed left hip, is not taking my class this semester. She was very talkative. She wants to be a dentist. Perfect.
Here is a short list of things she told me or otherwise disclosed while ultrasounding my hip:
she transfered with a lot of credits
she is doing a double major
the second major has a good internship program
when she graduates she will be qualified for a job which will start at twice what I would make as a PhD adjunct
her father works and possibly lives in Detroit
she doesn't like Detroit
she doesn't like or is at best ambivalent about her father
she's applying to dental schools in NY, MA, and CT
she is from a working class background, possibly with some serious financial troubles

I was in a good mood from my earlier conversation with the receptionist so the only problem I had with the chattiness was that it caused me to try to engage in socially appropriate (for discourse) eye contact. You know, as opposed to closing my eyes or staring at a wall in order to keep that somewhat necessary distance while a total stranger is having a lot of contact with what is quite close to being part of your ass. Worse was that where and how I was lying while she ultrasounded my hip put my eyes right on line with her crotch. I wonder how it must have looked to her, me occasionally looking up from her crotch to glance at her over my body, mostly naked pelvis and all.

After Chatty McChatterson left, the physical therapist came in. I still haven't worked up the nerve to ask her how I can have sex without hurting my hip more. Instead we talked about proper activities like walking and sitting. Then she dug into my hip. "Let me know when I get to the part that hurts the most" she said. If I'd known what she was going to do when she got to this information, I may not have been so forthcoming with it. The short version is that what she did is called a "friction massage" and it's supposed to hurt. It did.

Then we did a pitiful number of strength exercises which left my leg feeling like jelly. I was garnished with an extremely large ice bag and left for ten minutes while jock guys instructed one another in the best way to skip down the hall past my door "Get 'em up high...really drive into it!" a jockish voice yelled (ka-klomp, ka-klomp, ka-klomp) "Come on, three more!" (ka-klomp, ka-klomp, ka-klomp).

So now I am at home and sore. I bought a book recommended by a friend (who recently graduated from Evil Graduate school) and I'm going to wash up, get into jammies, and read my lazy liquified ass to sleep.