With some illnesses and serious injuries you need to treat your rehabilitation like you would a job. Learning how your body works and reacts to stimulus and dedicating hours towards achieving your goals. This is especially true for me in combating my MS. Multiple Sclerosis is an insidious and fickle disease that keeps you guessing as to how it will next remind you that it lurks inside you.
As with any job it’s important to have a good boss or coach providing leadership and oversight. In my case physical therapists fill this role As a professional patient, the job title I have given myself, I have found three important qualities in a great physical therapist that help me get the most benefit from my sessions.
● They never ask me if I can do something. Instead my therapists work on the assumption that I can and then spend weeks, sometimes months, making me believe it. This assurance is based on their knowledge of anatomy, experience and trust. My role is to listen, learn and practice. Lots of practice! I have learned that my obligations in the rehabilitation process are just as important as theirs, if not more so. The exercises they teach me help re-educate my body to follow along and eventually take over. I have found that with time, consistency and a lot of patience, movements that initially seem foreign can be voluntarily be replicated.
● They have taught me to focus on what I can do, not what I can’t. In my case progress is a concentrated effort that begins with improving individual functions that make up a complex system. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the arduous work it takes to recover movement in a specific muscle let alone an entire limb. To lessen my self-doubt and frustration we work together to focus on individual movements that after time, resembles more normal function.
● We celebrate the small wins together. From the first quiver I feel in my toes to when I am able to engage my quadricepts and hamstring finally feeling the pressure on the sole of my foot as they sink into the ball pushing it away from my body my therapist’s are always there, cheering for me along the way.
On the days when I drag myself to therapy armed with a litany of justifications as to why my muscles are too tired to work, my therapist gently ignores my excuses and manages to yield positive results anyway, always managing to help me leave feeling better than when I arrived.
After years of therapy I have learned that the road to recovery is long and uncertain. I am propelled forward thanks to important milestones I have reached along the way. The immense pride I feel in being able to replicate exercises at home on my own in order to relieve the pain and stiffness. Or the joy I and feel when my brain is able to command long dormant to respond to my orders. At these moments I hear my therapist’s voice in my head guiding my actions, reminding me to breathe and above all to have patience and respect for myself and the healing process.
