Sean came with me and my Mom to ATI to help get me out of the car since I still can’t put weight on my right leg. Not being able to bend my knee so having to sit in the back of my car is really frustrating! Not to be responsible for the music choice or temperature control in the car is even more frustrating!
I sit in the backseat with my back against the driver’s side door and my legs straight out. Given that I am only 5 feet tall, I fit just fine. I have 2 pillows behind my back and a pillow under my right leg. I told you it was it involved to get me in the car! My knee was hurting pretty badly so I rested my head on the seat and tried to doze off.
I noticed, five minutes until my appointment time that we were still on I-96. I called ATI and told them that I was coming but I would be late. Then, traffic completely stopped FOREVER! I remembered a couple of years back, when I was training at Barwis with Mike Rhoades, and traffic was brutal. It was because of an accident. I was pretty sure this was an accident too.
I couldn’t really see out of the front window, and my knee hurt a whole lot, but traffic was not moving and I was frustrated because I was late for my physical therapy appointment! Then, we all saw it. It was a garbage truck who lost all of the garbage out of his truck so there were like four other garbage trucks picking up that garbage that was strewn across the highway and police were directing traffic. It was a huge mess! I just wanted to hurry up and get into ATI!
I finally get into ATI and Brad began working quickly once I was on the table. He bent my knee and was able to get it to the 90° that was my goal! Then, kneaded my calf vigorously and my MS reaction was to jerk my foot away from him. He kept a tight hold on my ankle and I could feel my calf relax.
He kept looking at the clock behind me (because I was close to a half hour late) and said he wanted to save time for ice and stim so he worked quickly on my calf, it didn’t hurt as badly as it did before but it didn’t feel good!
Once Brad was satisfied with the work he did on me, he hooked me up for stim and placed the ice pack on my knee. I let my breath out and closed my eyes because it felt so good! My mom stood by me by this time. My mom suggested that I cancel my appointment the whole time we were in traffic. I told her that even though we were late, I needed to come to therapy for this exact moment! The combination of the stim and ice is the best feeling in the world for my surgically repaired knee!