Physical Therapy – baseline

I had my first PT appointment on Friday and have my second one, tomorrow. The assessments I went through were comical. When you only have one balance nerve to keep you upright and you close your eyes while standing with one foot in front of the other, you fall over. When you close your eyes and turn your head from side to side, you fall over. When you try walking with your eyes closed, you can’t walk in a strait line and your physical therapist has to stop you before you run in to anything. Looking at my current abilities, I suppose there are two reactions I could have had – laugh or cry. I chose (and continue to choose) to laugh.

Based on my performance, you can probably guess what kind of exercises I was given to work on. Twice a day, I need to stand with my feet staggered, eyes closed, and move my head. I also have to turn 45 degrees and then back to my original position with my eyes closed. During testing, the therapist saw that my eyes make a slight jerky movement when they move from right to left. She gave me an eye exercise to work on that issue as well.

As part of the review of the appointment, my therapist asked how realistic I thought it would be for me to work on the exercises she assigned on a daily basis. My response was, “I’m extremely motivated.”