Progress in Steps

As most of you know, I have been going through physical therapy these last couple days. During surgery, in order to get to the cancerous lymph nodes in my groin, they had to cut through my muscle and nerves in my upper thigh. Leaving me unable to walk very far without a lot of pain.

I was really disappointed after my first physical therapy appointment, but then again I think I let myself down because I had such high expectations for recovery. I was upset that during my first appointment I didn't improve my walking distance at all. If anything, I felt like I was walking less because we did so many stretches that make me ridiculously sore. It's honestly so crazy how much pain there is just while walking from a muscle in your upper thigh being cut through.

But thank God I have friends who hold me accountable about having high expectations. I had a friend who gave me a reality check by making sure that I realized it was only 5 days ago that they cut into my leg. I mean, even then I really wanted to get up and moving soon.

I told my PT that I had the goal of being back at Fox within a week, he said that with where I am now that that might be stretching it. I say Challenge Accepted.

Day two started with a lot of stretches. And if I had any say in it, I would have been done after the first one. The stretching that he does hurts way worse than the actual walking.

In fact, it hurt so much that I kicked my physical therapist in the face!

Okay, I didn't do it on purpose, but it's fun to make it sound that way. He did some stretch where put my leg up, bent my knee, and then pushed down. And somehow from that my instant reflex was to kick my leg up, which happened to also be where his face was located. Of course I felt bad, but he just laughed it off and said that it has happened before.

This whole physical therapy thing was concerning me because he was doing all of these stretches, but never actually working on my walking. I had been there two days and we did 45 minutes of stretching each time. I mean, couldn't I do that at home?

When I walked into day three, my physical therapist wasn't anywhere in site like normal. The assistant told me to take a seat over on the stretching table and that he would be right now.

Then from around the corner my physical therapist walked in...

With a face mask on!

I started busting up laughing. He took it off and said he just enjoyed giving me a hard time. We began stretching again and I asked if this was going to another 45 minutes of stretching or was I actually going to work on walking with him.

He looked at me an sort of chuckled. He said, "Well you know how to walk don't know? Why would we need to work on that?"

Which I guess makes complete sense, but I know how to stretch too!

Then he told me that once again, he was joking with me and that we will start walking distance tomorrow!

So here I am after day three of physical therapy, still believing that I will be back at Fox by next week. I am working hard to make that happen. I do my stretches at home, and I scale the hallways in order to get more pressure applied to my leg so if anything I can get used to the pain.

"If you are persistent long enough, even though the journey is physically hard and often tiresome, you may reach a place of beauty and splendor beyond comprehension."

I am having to constantly remind myself that progress is progress, no matter how small. And I need to understand that sometimes I have to accept the little steps before I can receive the bigger outcome.