I walked into the physical therapy clinic on Friday without using crutches and the therapist said, “Jeez, you’re doing really well for only a week and half post-op.” When I told her it was only a day and a half, she grabbed her chart to check if I was telling the truth. When I showed her that I could do a leg lift with my bum leg, she called over her fellow therapists to marvel at the wonderboy, a patient that she then stated she wanted for herself since as a part-timer, she rarely got to start with a patient from day 1. “Instead of leftovers, I got fresh, quality meat,” she laughed.
This was a heady experience, of course, and I could see that I’d like working with her. My lookma ego (AKA “Look, Ma, no hands!”) got saddled up and was off to the races until my “silent watcher” paid a brief visit, indicating it would likely be a bad outcome if I went along for the ride. I was grateful when, at the end of the session, she followed me out to the scheduling desk and said that as much as she’d like to work with me, it would probably be better for me to mainly work with one of the full-time therapists. As we left, I told my wife that I was glad to be scheduled with someone else since it would be hard to deal with someone who was impressed with me all the time. Trying to impress is my Achilles heel. And having someone around who’s easily impressed with me dumps a motherload (pun intended) of psychological cargo on my psyche.
But the good side of all this was a heightened awareness that lookma’s going to be lurking constantly throughout my recovery. Every time I sat down to do my homework exercises this weekend, it (he?) would pay a visit, with something like, “Just wait till my new therapist on Tuesday sees how well I’m doing.” Maybe 25% of the time I’d catch it, dismiss it with an offhand shrug, and then just try to focus on counting the repetitions or my breathing, or putting my hand on both knees so as to notice the differences in the muscles as they tensed and relaxed. If I get better at paying attention, this shit’s going to make me stronger in more ways than just my knee.