October 15, 2018, 3:00 p.m.
I’m having a great deal of trepidation about today’s physical therapy appointment. My eyes are teary, and I hope to God I can hold it together when I’m actually in the treatment room with Francis. It will take a great deal of restraint on my part to not dump on him like he’s my mental health professional. He has always been very understanding with me, but I never want to cross the line. I think I’m afraid he’ll tell me I can’t see him any more. That is my real fear!
Francis appeared with a smile and greeting, as usual. My first challenge was figuring out how to respond to his “How are you?” I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it wasn’t, “Fine!” We chatted all the way down two hallways, which was very uncharacteristic for me. Maybe I was just trying too hard to seem “normal.” Or maybe it was that I was secretly basking in just his kind, gentle presence.
I asked him if he had had a hard day (after all, it was 3:00 p.m., near the end of the day). He told me it was a busy day because he had been on vacation all last week.
“Oh, did you go someplace fun?” I asked. “Or just relax at home.”
He relayed that he and his wife had spent the week in New Orleans where she, a nurse, had a professional conference. So he spent his days sightseeing in NOLA. His greatest interest was in a fascinating (to him) World War II museum. And he chatted about that.
Eventually, he asked how I was doing, and so I did blurt out that I have been depressed and, thus, had not been keeping up with my exercises. But I didn’t tell him the reason for my depression. I did tell him I had been thinking I might need to see a mental health professional but wasn’t sure how to get a referral.
“My PCP, I suppose,” I said. “It’s just that he’s a new PCP and doesn’t really know me that well yet.” But Francis agreed that would be the place to start. “Maybe I should take a class on depression,” I mused. “Like group therapy. And maybe I could tell from that if I really need to see someone individually.
He agreed that might be a good plan. “But your PCP should be aware of it, anyway,” he suggested.
In my neediness, I just had to confirm with him, once again, that there was no fixed limit on the number of times I could come for physical therapy. “Until you no longer need it,” he said, as he had many times before, “or until you have made all the progress possible.”
Well, my OCD brain still had to quantify it. “You said last time that I had regained 80% range of motion. Maybe when I get to 95%, that would be the time to stop, maybe come back in 3 months or 6 months.” He nodded. He’s such an agreeable person.
“Are there any additional exercises you want to add to my routine?” He didn’t answer immediately, so I went on. And I talked about what I had said in the beginning, that the greatest pain relief that I had from him or Carole (in Oakland) involved spinal decompression. Traction. That made him think of some YouTube videos he had of a homemade neck traction device.
Then he went to a cupboard and pulled out a towel. He had me lie on my back on the treatment table and he put the towel behind my neck and held it firmly so my head was just above the pillow. He instructed me to do the “mindful breathing” (and he called it diaphragmatic breathing, what Julie had called “belly breathing” in the Pain Management group). He held my head in that position for a very long time, long enough that I felt that pain relief I had experienced so very briefly early on.
Then he pulled out a homemade traction device that he had made, based on the YouTube video, and showed me how it hooked over a doorknob and then you’re supposed to lie on the floor “on a yoga mat,” he said, and then just relax for 15-20 minutes, doing the breathing. I took a picture with my phone and showed it to Linda when I got out to the van.15
He made another appointment for me, five weeks from today, only at 4:00 p.m. “Is that too late for you?” I asked, somewhat rhetorically. “Don’t you want to go home at four!”
“Oh, no,” he responded, typing on his keyboard.
I stood. “Thank you so much for seeing me today,” I said, and he will never know just how much I appreciated his calm and cheerful demeanor.
San Leandro Pharmacy
Since I had received both an email and a text from the San Leandro Pharmacy, I asked Linda if we could stop by there on our way home. It was decorated in a Halloween theme, just like the Union City Pain Clinic had been.
The short version is that I was able to get meloxicam and Flexeril, no problem. But I could not get Lyrica and tramadol until the 18th (that’s Thursday!). And I will be *completely OUT* on the 20th! And thus continues my fight to get my pain meds when I need them.
