Back to Basics

I’m an almost sixty-seven-year-old white female with not a lot to complain about except the state of the union, a troubling bit of numbness in my feet, and a spine that could someday break due to osteoporosis. To avoid that, I take a class called Better Bones and Balance which involves weightlifting, squats, and a whole lot of stomping around because stomping stimulates bone growth and lifting makes me strong (like cow, as my mom would say).

A few weeks ago, I asked my doctor for a Physical Therapy referral. I know it’s my back that’s gonna get me, I told her, and I’d just as soon do the right exercises now rather than wait to find out I should have been doing them all along. She agreed.

I met Nathan the therapist on Friday. He asked me to bend forward, touch my toes, which I did. Then bend backwards, which I wasn’t as happy about. Stiff, he said. No shit, I thought. Then I remembered to tell him about my tingly feet. Interesting, he said. That’s good, I thought, because if it’s interesting, maybe he’s got a fix.

Then he told me to lie face down on a cushy table, turn my head to the side and relax my hips, thighs, and butt as much as possible. Yay, I thought. I love to lie on my belly but don’t because other specialists have told me not to do that for fear of hurting my back! As I lay there relaxing my mid-section, he asked about my feet which I’d forgotten about. Interesting, I thought. Better, I said. I’m not surprised, he said, you’re deranged. Deranged? I said with a chuckle. That would explain a lot. He chuckled back, then explained that I have a derangement in my back, a quirk, an anomaly, a little something causing me trouble, something we should work on. Something I should work on, that is, something he would show me how to do.

So now, every couple of hours for the next few weeks I’ll work on my derangement. I like thinking about my back this way. It’s funnier than thinking I’m just getting old.

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