I took my trusty mountain bike out of the storeroom a week ago, when all the snow had melted and the birds were singing and the children were running. Then the rains came, then the rain turned to snow, and oh how that unridden bike seems so wildly optimistic now. The last 24 hours have not been kind to your humble blog person (me). I think this week will almost certainly require some form of beer. I did finally make an appointment with a physical therapy office to get some exercises for my wounded knee today. My therapist Solvieg seemed quite happy with how much progress I have made in the 4 weeks since the surgery. The visit to a place like that makes it clear how different Norway can be in some ways to the U.S. First there was no receptionist in the office (that I could find) so I just waited silently on a chair with my shoes off, like everyone else. There was something odd about the other people there, I can't quite figure out what was going on, but they kept coming out of the therapy area in the back, then trading seats with another person who would then go back into the office. But they never said anything. Maybe those were magic seats or they just liked warm chairs, I have no idea. Eventually Solvieg came to find me and took me back to her office. Like all semi-literate foreigners, I of course had the wrong paperwork from the surgery clinic. No problem, she picked up the phone and called the hospital and 2 minutes later the proper papers were in the mail. No charge for my therapy sessions, I guess it was included in the $50 I paid for the surgery in the first place. Happily I wore clean underwear, as I was soon parading around in them showing off my awesome scar. After we did some basic exercises, it was time for the big room with all the cool therapy toys. It had some normal stuff that I could recognize from the gym, but also some rather odd equipment as well. There seemed to be a lot of aging pensioners dangling from the ceiling from some kind of straps and weird rope things. Some of them were sort of wiggling like fish that were hooked but hadn't quite died yet. At least one or two of them had given up even the wiggling and were just talking. Or at least one guy was talking, maybe the other one had passed on I'm not sure. I am sure it took them a while to pull his body out of the rope thingy later. I got to do the leg press machine and some balancing on a chunk of blue foam, which is much harder than it sounds. I felt a bit out of place as the only one there under the age of 85. All I know for sure is that when you get to the point where they start strapping you into the ceiling ropes, it's not far to the end of the road friends..........just keep wiggling as long as you can.
Monday, March 28, 2011
The perils of optimisim
I took my trusty mountain bike out of the storeroom a week ago, when all the snow had melted and the birds were singing and the children were running. Then the rains came, then the rain turned to snow, and oh how that unridden bike seems so wildly optimistic now. The last 24 hours have not been kind to your humble blog person (me). I think this week will almost certainly require some form of beer. I did finally make an appointment with a physical therapy office to get some exercises for my wounded knee today. My therapist Solvieg seemed quite happy with how much progress I have made in the 4 weeks since the surgery. The visit to a place like that makes it clear how different Norway can be in some ways to the U.S. First there was no receptionist in the office (that I could find) so I just waited silently on a chair with my shoes off, like everyone else. There was something odd about the other people there, I can't quite figure out what was going on, but they kept coming out of the therapy area in the back, then trading seats with another person who would then go back into the office. But they never said anything. Maybe those were magic seats or they just liked warm chairs, I have no idea. Eventually Solvieg came to find me and took me back to her office. Like all semi-literate foreigners, I of course had the wrong paperwork from the surgery clinic. No problem, she picked up the phone and called the hospital and 2 minutes later the proper papers were in the mail. No charge for my therapy sessions, I guess it was included in the $50 I paid for the surgery in the first place. Happily I wore clean underwear, as I was soon parading around in them showing off my awesome scar. After we did some basic exercises, it was time for the big room with all the cool therapy toys. It had some normal stuff that I could recognize from the gym, but also some rather odd equipment as well. There seemed to be a lot of aging pensioners dangling from the ceiling from some kind of straps and weird rope things. Some of them were sort of wiggling like fish that were hooked but hadn't quite died yet. At least one or two of them had given up even the wiggling and were just talking. Or at least one guy was talking, maybe the other one had passed on I'm not sure. I am sure it took them a while to pull his body out of the rope thingy later. I got to do the leg press machine and some balancing on a chunk of blue foam, which is much harder than it sounds. I felt a bit out of place as the only one there under the age of 85. All I know for sure is that when you get to the point where they start strapping you into the ceiling ropes, it's not far to the end of the road friends..........just keep wiggling as long as you can.
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it's probably one of the funniest way one can describe a physiotherapy 'parlor' :) wiggle wiggle all the way :) And hope you don't spend too much time over there!
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