Physical Therapy Reject

For the past several weeks, I've been going to physical therapy for my jaw problems. Before I went, I treated it like a joke. Who goes to physical therapy for eir jaw?

During my first session, I was a bit embarrassed. The waiting room was full of people with legitimate physical limitations, and there I was just normal looking -- or at least I'd like to think so. When I was finally moved to a room only to wait some more, I heard people struggling to walk and moaning in pain. I could hear the coaching, "Just give me two steps -- come on!" I had difficulty accepting how I should be at a place with people overcoming such devastating physical obstacles.

When my own training started, however, I found that maybe my sense of superiority was inflated. It was rigorous and they pushed me. Although my physical limitation was less visible than the other patients', it still merited my place in the office. Previously, I wasn't aware of just how little my jaw was capable of. For example, I can't move my jaw to the side at all, and I had no clue that that was unusual. Sure, I've seen people do it before, but I thought it was a double jointed trick, not a normal jaw movement. So when I couldn't open wide enough, that wasn't acceptable. "Push wider! Hold it!" They kept asking me to do things I couldn't do, and wanted me to do it anyway. At times, I wanted to cry. In time, I recognized that I really wasn't much different than the person in the hall struggling to take a few steps. My affliction was just more dorky.

My treatment included getting ultrasounds on my face. I thought ultrasounds were just for taking photos of fetuses, but apparently it can do something positive for my jaw, too. I haven't ruled out the possibility that it's just a big physical therapy joke, however, and that they snicker behind the scenes at the fact that they've convinced me an ultrasound is a real treatment. Or maybe they were just convinced that my jaw problems stemmed from the fact that I eat babies and their little baby body parts are

One week, when the doctor was busy, I was asked to go to the workout room to do some exercise to "reinforce my posture." I was put on some exercise equipment around people who were trying to build strength back into their limbs. I had a moral dilemma: do I work at my full capacity so that I don't look lazy, or do I hold off a bit because no one else in the room is capable of working the machines at a normal rate? Ultimately, I decided that even if the others couldn't compete in a normal gym, they were all giving it their full effort, so I decided against half-assing it and just work out like a normal person. I was told to do six repetitions of ten on a machine, which I completed quickly. The doctor didn't reappear, so as not to appear lazy, I kept going for about twenty minutes until an orderly told me not to "over do it" and put me on another machine. I was asked to do six sets of ten on that one, and again, since no one stopped me, I just kept going, this time for nearly half an hour. Finally, a different orderly came over and said, "You must have done 500 of those, you need to stop or you'll exert yourself too much!" I explained that I was here for my jaw to ease their worried mine, which earned me some stares from the semi-paralyzed people surrounding me.

That's why I always felt like the dork at physical therapy. The other patients, when they learned of my condition, didn't even pretend to be sympathetic. I could tell they were thinking, "Go home, get hit by a bus, and come back when you have a real problem." I was struggling just as hard as them, though! Well, sort of.

Recently, I learned of a friend (who has been mentioned in this blog, but will currently remain anonymous) who is also undergoing physical therapy for severely pulling eir groin. Now ey has to go in multiple times a week for such treatments as a butt massage. Wanna know how this friend pulled eir groin? By attempting a split... in celebration... while bowling... after getting a spare. At any rate, I no longer feel like the dorkiest person to ever attend physical therapy.

Though I've made progress with my exercises, this past week my doctor told me it was time to stop the therapy. I had made some progress, but seemed to hit a wall. As I had been warned from the get go, it seemed likely that my condition was not something that could be sufficiently treated by physical therapy. Next, I will be referred to an oral surgeon for some "less preferable, but necessary" treatment. Yeah, that sounds fun. I can't say I'll particularly miss the physical therapy or the stigma attached with being such a patient. Still, I resent the fact that I'm now officially a physical therapy reject. I can run faster than all of those fuckers -- why did I get cut from the team?