Therapy

I enrolled in ASU without ever talking to a guidance counselor (bad idea)....

When loved ones died or ran off I sought help from a personal counselor (good idea).

Now I am in the hands of a new kind of therapist.  A physical therapist.

I have been lucky in my career to not have suffered many injuries, but my recent surgery to repair a punctured rotator cuff and shave off some bone spurs in my right shoulder really laid me up.  I couldn’t do anything.  Getting dressed or undressed resembled some strange spastic dance.  More like I was trying to escape from a straight jacket than just pull a T-shirt over my head.  And that was only part of it.  I couldn’t cook, I couldn’t comb my hair, I couldn’t move a mouse.  The first 10 days of recovery were not pretty.  Then they sent me to Andrea.  A physical therapist who runs herd over a group of knee and shoulder surgery survivors.  She is amazing.  Strong and fit and not shy about showing off her ample figure, she looks like she should be in a Wagnerian opera - or the NFL.  She plays rugby in her spare time.  She and her two helpers run us through a series of electro stimulation, strenuous exercises and the dreaded hands-on treatment.  She is the only one who actually performs this particular torture.  As I lay helpless on her table she takes my right arm and pokes, pulls and pushes it into all types of positions it no longer has the flexibility to go.  As I bite my lip and look up at her with the biggest puppy eyes I can muster when it really gets to what feels like the breaking point and say “that really hurts” she replies in the most understanding voice, “I know.”  While it seems counter intuitive to put so much pressure on a fresh wound, guess what?  It’s working.  In a few short weeks I have regained most of my mobility. I’m still a little short on the lateral stuff, but it will come and I haven’t questioned her methods since the first couple of sessions. (When I wanted to run screaming from the building and never return).  I have a few more weeks to go and then I will be able to pick up my camera and get back in the field, doing what I love.  And I will owe more than a little bit of that to Andrea.  Queen of pain.  Thank You.