Taking it Slower

I'm so determined to get back home and to serious memoir work that I may be pushing too hard. Or maybe others are pushing me too hard.

Late yesterday afternoon, a new PT showed up. He has elaborate theories about how our lives have become more linear, our ways of moving have become robotic.

He means that as recently as a century ago, in order to get around and do our jobs we had to be able to move laterally, twist and side-step in unconventional ways.

Now everything in the developed world is straight, neat and predictable and we only use certain parts of our bodies to stand, sit, move.

His work routine for me started out easily enough. Just walking back and forth with the walker. Then with the cane. Then without aid of any kind.

As this was out in the open hall, I could sense people gasp as they saw me walking unaided. That turned out to be the easy part.

He then had me walk to the stairs and walk up and down them unaided. Sometimes left foot first, sometimes right. He was assessing my balance, he said.

His theories include that our sense of balance emanates not in our brain but in the core parts of our body we typically ignore. our hips, pelvic, sides, thighs and stomachs. Since we don't exercise these much our balance deteriorates with age.

He criticized body-building techniques like ever-increasing weight-lifting. None of this gets to the main issues that concern him as a PT.

After somewhat unsteadily navigating the stairs several times, I returned to my bed to end the session. I was so physically stretched that I could barely eat dinner before collapsing to sleep.

Mid-evening, I awoke. I ate the sandwich I've recently ordered to fill me up at night. (The theory here is it might help me sleep.) Well, it woke me up and made me restless instead.

As both my roommates were asleep, I tapped into YouTube and listened to hours of country music through ear buds. Aidan recently told me he knows the reason I love country music is the story-telling.

People much more sophisticated than I am eschew country music as simplistic and cliche-ridden. And I agree.

But what are our lives really like? Besides the daily bodily functions that define us as the animals we are, we choose clothes, attend meetings and harbor feelings like unspoken love, resentment, self-loathing and pure unadulterated love.

Another restless night is ended. It's 6 a.m. It is a Tuesday. The nurses are stirring. Today I have a visit with a neurologist to assess whether I have early-stage Parkinson's. Aidan will take me. I'll probably have more OT and PT.

Hopefully I'll keep paying attention and learning these new theories of movement. I already am walking around the room unaided much more often. I'm ready to go home and get to work.

-30-