Physical Therapy

On my first meeting with the PT at the osteopath's office, I warned him that the Geneva Convention prohibits torture, expecting that this was gonna hurt...he reminded me that "some people" torture anyway. Hmmm, I wonder to whom he was referring? Anyhow, there was no pain involved in the physical therapy, just a lot of weird positions and stretches. Then he taught me the exercises I need to do to get the joints on my lumbar and sacral vertebrae working properly again. Apparently, when I stopped growing, I adapted well to the difference in the lengths of my legs, but now my body is fighting back, and I'm the one getting beat up. So I am doing my exercises twice a day, and have a lift in my left shoe equal to half of the difference in the length of my legs. I expect I'll get a new lift in a few weeks to match that difference. I don't know whether I'm getting better yet, but I do like to imagine that I am.

But I am almost happy about my problem compared to my granddaughter's...she's 13 years old, a long-legged beauty, and she is having surgery for scoliosis on Feb. 28. From what I have gleaned from my research on the matter, it's nasty, rough surgery. She'll spend a day or two in ICU, and will be out of school for a month. The surgery is happening at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and I will be going with my daughter because...well, she wants me to, for one thing. She knows she'll be a wreck and wants me for support, but also, I just feel that I should be there. My family means more to me than anything, having grown up in a cold, dysfunctional family myself.