No New Machines

When I went to therapy on Friday I had a re-evaluation and my leaning numbers (front to back and side to side) had improved to almost normal. Bob (the PT guy) scheduled two more weeks of therapy and said he would start me on some machine exercises on Monday. I was very encouraged about this since I have a lifetime membership to Fitness USA and would be able to go there to continue machine use.

I figured Bob would set me up on a series of exercizes that would be more helpful than harmful since right now I don't know the difference.

I got to my appointment on Monday and felt like I had gone to the wrong place. No Bob or any of the assistants that I was used to. The main person seemed to be George who was Indian and hard to understand, his assistant was Eva who was Polish and hard to understand. They asked me what I usually had done, and of course, I didn't know the proper names for any of it.

When George got an inkling of what should be done after finally looking at my chart, he walked over to one of the high tables and said. "OK, get up on the table on your stomach." I said, "I can't breath when I lay on my stomach and I will need a chair to get up on that table.".

He gave me a lower table (they were all empty I was the only one there) and told Eva to begin my Deep Heat Stimulation (that's what Bob always called it but these people were using letters, I think it was IFC). She started to connect the ports to my back and I asked if they were going to put a heating pad on the table. After she sighed, she asked the American male gopher to get her a heating pad. As she was setting me up on the machine she talked to the kid telling him many times how this was so much easier to do if the person was on their stomach.

So, when that was done, she did my Ultrasound massage again letting me know several times that she had never done this to a sitting patient before.

After that she asked me what else I did, I showed her the exercises I did and she added 3 or 4 more to be done on the floor. I told her I could not get down on the floor. She was not happy with me. I was happy to be in the West because I'm thinking that in the Eastern Bloc they have ways to get to on the floor.

While I was doing the exercises, Eva and the kid were talking about the fact that George was leaving at 4:30 (My appointments this week are 3:20, and it took them almost a half hour to decide what to do with me.) Eva and the kid discussed how much lunch and break time each of them had had and what time they would be able to skip out after George left.

The upshot was I only did half my exercises and told them I was done and got out of there. There was no traction and no new machines.