September 11, Physiotherapy

Angela writes:

I have a new physiotherapist. My old one, the one who had cured my broken ankle and tried to help my broken back, has left for the more alluring skies of BC. I loved her because she had been a gymnast in her youth. All these years later, and she is about my age, her body the bearer of the grace branded by that superwoman-superchild sport.

After her departure I thought I would not go back to the town of Campbellford. I would not continue my therapy there. I did not want this separation to weigh upon the already exhausting balance of good byes I carry around. Yet as soon as the month of September sent everybody back to work, I felt I’d better take up again at least this one fragile routine and pretend I was going back to some sort of work myself.

The new physiotherapist looks nothing like the job would presuppose. On the other hand, her name is Kathy. There have been so many Kathy and Catherine in my life. Some are still with me, some are not, and some are tenuously in-between. I decided I should give this Kathy a chance if only in the name, the melancholy name of those older associations.

She turned out to be more interested in the workings of my fingers than of my arms. I am in therapy because my arms have been weakened by the tumor. My fingers have been even more affected, of course. That is why I have not written anything since last October, when I did a paper, my last paper, for my friend Calin. But until now, knowing the damage to the fingers to be irreversible, therapy has only been concerned with strengthening my arms. And some progress occurred.

Nevertheless, the new Kathy came up with a new idea, which I confess took me by surprise. That I should work on my fingers.

She is telling me to pull a facecloth between my two weakest fingers, the index and the thumb, held tight; or to endlessly clip laundry pins on a rod; or, better yet, to sit in front of the computer and practice typing, for a few minutes every day.
I look at her in disbelief. I find typing difficult. This is why, last year, once out of the hospital, I got an iPad. In order to write on an iPad you only need to use one finger or two.

That is precisely why, she comes back, you should use the computer keyboard, and just type away, numbers, random phrases as they come to your mind, whatever you hear, if you do not know what to.

A bit frazzled, I tell her that I know what to type; I pretend that is not my problem; it used to be my job. You know. I used to write, to put it simply.

She does not seem to see the relevance of that. A relatively unimportant detail under the present circumstances. And continues by encouraging me to do my emails on the computer keyboard. Yes, there’s a good idea.

I say thank you, not without a sort of dazed sincerity, and leave with the resolve, albeit bemused, to “practice keyboard” for a few minutes every day.

I’ll ask Colin to make some room for me in his blog. Maybe I can write a few words now and then, in order to strengthen my fingers, and with them all the muscles which, all over my back, contribute to the task of writing.