After last Tuesday's backslide and losing 20 degrees in the range of motion in my knee, my therapist Jessica greeted me on Thursday with determination and a plan to get back to (and past) where I had previously been measured.
Previously I have started out each appointment sitting on a table with both legs straight out and heat on my knee. It's my "warm up" before I start stretching and doing exercises. So much for the relaxing first 10 minutes of my appointment. Thursday and again today I got to start my appointment in a new and interesting way. I still got heat for the first 10-15 minutes, but instead of being relaxed with my legs on the table, I was asked to sit on the end of the table with my legs hanging over the end. Well, my left leg was hanging nicely with a 90 degree bend while my right leg was just sticking out into the room at a slight downward angle. Jessica applied the heat, grabbed some surgical tubing and tied my right ankle to the table leg with tension. So the net effect was that my knee was being bent as heat was being applied. Needless to say, this was not very relaxing. Actually relaxing was the hardest part of this. It didn't really hurt, but my natural instinct was to tense up and resist the pull at my ankle and the weight of the heat wrap on my leg. But as usual, Jessica knew what she was doing, because the more I relaxed the more I could feel my knee loosen and bend.
But she wasn't finished yet. Once the heat came off and she removed the strap between my ankle and the table she then began massaging the muscles around my knee with one hand while gently pushing on my ankle with the other. She was able to get me to 48 degrees on Thursday. Then after 20 reps of my knee bending exercises she measured the bend at 50 degrees.
Today we got it to 55 degrees although it took a bit more force than it did last time. I've been instructed to do my knee bending exercise three times a day now and she has assured me that on Thursday we will get to 6o degrees.
This whole routine reminds me of what my good friend Doug used to say when we were working together and ran into something that was a little difficult. When we were building something and it appeared a piece of lumber might be just a bit long and might not fit, or when we were doing demo and ran into something stubborn he often said "It's all in how you ask it." Doug has hammers that he has named Please, Pretty Please, and Pretty Please with Sugar on Top. If you haven't guessed, each of these hammers is bigger than the next. Actually Pretty Please with Sugar on Top is a sledge hammer.
So last Thursday Jessica said "please", today was definitely a "pretty please" and I am really hoping that my range of motion continues to improve without her having to do a "pretty please with sugar on top."
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