Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2009. Sitting next to Mattie was Anna. Anna was Mattie's physical therapist. It happened to be Anna's birthday that day, and Mattie decided to share his homemade cupcakes with her! Whenever I think of physical therapy in ANY context, the immediate vision that pops into my head is Anna. Anna and Mattie and their journey together. Anna worked very hard at managing Mattie's lack of mobility and his pain. Mattie put Anna through her paces and forced her to think outside the box when working with him. But she rose to the occasion and they had a great relationship together. What I always appreciated about Anna was her honesty about Mattie's physical abilities post surgeries and helped to manage our expectations regarding Mattie's ability to walk again. What I mean by this is after Mattie underwent his second limb salvaging surgery, he NEVER walked independently again. The doctors seemed surprised by this, but Anna wasn't. She wasn't because she understood the nature of rehab. Since Mattie couldn't put pressure on his arms, there was no way he was easily going to regain strength and abilities in his legs. As he couldn't use crutches or do any weigh bearing exercises.
Quote of the day: If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you will see obstacles. ~ Wayne Dyer
I had my first physical therapy appointment today to help manage the pain in my hip. The orthopedic doctor I saw in July wants to try more conservative options first before leaping into surgery. Which I appreciate. He referred me to a physical therapist who specializes in hips, specifically the hip issue I have. I have something called a labral tear. It is an issue that will NEVER heal itself. So one may ask..... then why do physical therapy? The thinking is to relieve some of the inflammation around the tear, in hopes that it will improve my mobility and decrease my pain. In theory this makes sense, given that the doctor believes I have been living with this tear for a number of years.
A hip labral tear occurs where there is damage to the labrum within the hip joint. The hip joint is where the thigh bone meets the pelvis. It is described as a ball-and-socket joint. This design allows the hip to move in several directions. The bony socket is surrounded by a ring of cartilage called the labrum. The labrum provides additional stability to the hip joint. A labral tear results when a part of the labrum separates or is pulled away from the socket. Most often, a labral tear is the result of repetitive trauma to the hip, either due to running or repeated twisting and cutting.Given my experiences with Anna, I outright asked this therapist today for her option on my condition. Since she has treated many people with labral tears, I wanted to know how helpful physical therapy was going to be. Basically I wanted her to manage my expectations. Given that I have an impingement (bony abnormality in the hip joint) as well, the success with physical therapy is much lower. She feels that we will know in four weeks if this option will work. However, she tried to normalize the surgery for me. Needless to say, I will take it one step at a time. All I know is after she applied these hands-on treatments to gently move my muscles and joints in my hip, my pain level this evening has increased significantly! I am moving to icing my hip, in hopes that this pain goes away. Mind you, I have been on a high dose of a prescribed anti-inflammatory since April. It is the only thing that allows me to function at all. But now, even on this medication, I am feeling pain after today's manipulation. It doesn't really inspire me to go to physical therapy twice a week.
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