Therapeutastic!

(see - it's like therapeutic and fantastic put together in one word)
First some housekeeping.  My blog seems to have been infected with malware that tells you your Java needs to be updated.  I'm trying to uninfect it but should that fail I may need to move this page to a new blog.  I'll let you know if that happens and in the meantime, do not click on that Java nonsense.  Second - Morganautumn I do not see your email address on your profile but if you put it there or in a comment I will email you!
...on to other things.
Last week I started physical therapy in a cloud of expectation.  Finally!  The resting part is over!  Time to actually DO something to speed my recovery.  I was also really genuinely glad to see my physical therapist again.  I've been a patient over at Advanced Manual Therapy in Ballard on and off for the past four years (which I would like to point out predates my derby experience).  I've never been a person who had their own neighborhood bar, grocery or restaurant (where everyone knows your name!) but AMT is most certainly MY physical therapy office.  Ignoring for a moment what that says about my apparent propensity for injury I will say that it's great to know that while PT can be painful and boring at least its with people I know, like, and trust.
Having said that, I will admit that at best I am usually a pretty OK physical therapy patient which is a significant improvement over my pre-derby life where I was generally a totally non-compliant physical therapy patient.  I've always had bad feet and spent significant time in PT when I was a kid.  Other kids did not have to go see Fred the physical therapist, did not wear orthotics, were not forced to do situps every night before bed and didn't have to wear tennis shoes all summer in lieu of sandals.  I associated these things with my own weakness and so I associated PT with weakness.  It's taken a long time to for me to turn that mindset around and also to learn that weakness isn't actually a permanent and unchangeable state of being.
The roller derby community on the other hand is generally unabashed in its enthusiasm for rehab and prehab and so I too have learned to be unabashed.    Still, there are always so many exercises that it can seem hard to keep up.  I usually pick the top two that I should be doing at home and do them during my break at work.  It's not a perfect solution but it's consistent and better than nothing.
This past week of PT has been a lesson in what six weeks of atrophy can do to you.  On Saturday they asked me to do a hip adductor leg raise with two pounds attached to my foot on the bad leg and I couldn't.  Not because it hurt, but because there was no strength there.  It suddenly became very apparent that while I may be cleared to walk in another five weeks if I don't stay up with the PT my muscles won't be able to bear the weight.
I've suddenly found myself to be very motivated.
<posted on 4.1.14>