Being Thrust Back Into Hell

When I had my knee surgery back in May, I went to physical therapy by my house. After I got a couple of statements from the insurance company telling me what they were not going to pay for (a total of $750 that I'm going to have to pay...assholes), I decided to go to the physical therapy office closer to work because I wouldn't have to pay anything. Supplemental insurance rocks.

My first visit to the new physical therapist left me optimistic.

The second visit...not so much.

I scheduled my next one for a Monday morning, when I got off work. I could just go from work to the clinic, do my thing, and go home. Sadly, the nice lady I had previously was not working. Instead, I get Satan's Girlfriend.

Now, I would never try to tell a physical therapist how to do their jobs, but as I nurse, I know I would never walk into a patient's room, confess to "not having read their chart and not knowing much about their case" and proceed to do specialized care based only on the one diagnosis I did know about them. The same surgery on two different people can be wrought with two completely different outcomes based on history, complications, etc...

Satan's Girlfriend immediately puts me on some sort of squatting leg press thing. I squat and then she asks me why I'm flinching in excruciating pain.

Oh, I don't know, it could be the nest of nodules I have in the back of my knee, embedded in my tendons, you stupid twit.

It is then that I stop everything and proceed to tell her my knee history (which is extensive) up until this point. Sure, I had just a "lateral release of my patella", but let me tell you about the ten other things wrong with it before we charge full steam ahead with whatever cookie-cutter plan the physical therapy computer spits out.

So, she has me lay face down on a table so she can check out these nodules. She touches the back of my knee, briefly, and announces she feels no such nodules.

"Probably because you were feeling the wrong side of the knee." I suggested. I'm starting to get pissed. No matter, the Old Bat decides to continue with the session and has me do a couple benign strength-building things. As a grand finale, she puts me on this machine: a sleeve that fits around the leg and fills with ice-cold water. It's supposed to feel nice and reduce swelling. In the past, I've used this, and it was one of the things I looked forward to after my physical therapy. But that was for a different time, and a different type of knee surgery.

Einstein decides to crank the pressure up as high as it will go, hands me a little bell, and disappears. The pressure builds in the sleeve, which in turns pushes down on my patella, sending waves of pain coursing up and down my leg. I ring the bell. Brainiac pops up around the corner, sees me red-faced, and turns the pressure down by half. Meanwhile, the damage is done and my knee is making it's displeasure known. This is twenty minutes of hell.

After my time was up, I'm so angry, I can hardly speak. Happy Helperton chirps, "Now doesn't your leg feel better after that??"

I just shake my head and mumble something about it hurting worse. She's this close to having her face punched in, she just doesn't know...

Then, she becomes somewhat indignant, "Well, it didn't hurt your leg. It was just sore before."

I grabbed my keys and left, cancelling the remainder of my appointments, thinking about how much happier I would be if I could park a Ryder truck in front of their clinic.

Jeebus, and people wonder why I hate physical therapists. (Which is funny because an old high school crush of mine is now a physical therapist. Poor guy.) The last time I had physical therapy, the horse's ass would put me on a bike, and then disappear so he could talk to his girlfriend on the phone.

Today, I spoke with the office nurse of my ortho doc, and she chided me on not going to physical therapy. I told her about what happened, and get the standard sorry-spiel, but I still have to go to physical therapy. Doing it on my own is not acceptable, and I can probably expect a lecture from my ortho doc on my next visit. Never mind the fact that I've gotten more accomplished on my own than with the help of PT.

Could God hate me any more???