Knee Replacement 11: Picking a PT
As my prescription for physical therapy does not specify the facility, I’m on my own to choose. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it is yet another important choice that I’m ill-informed to make. What I do know is that I do not want to be treated like an old guy who hopes to one day get back to the shuffleboard court (in other words, someone my age).
I want to be pushed, I want to be optimized, to be treated like an athlete. I know, it’s a stretch, but self-delusion has always been a superpower. Those who’ve known me a long time are apt to attempt to curb my delusions with the kryptonite of recalled experiences, and when that fails, there’s always sarcasm.
When I tell my brother that I want a therapist to treat me like an athlete, he says that’s a great idea; Google can definitely find a blind physical therapist. There must be lots in Utah.
Fortunately, I have some less sarcastic friends. I put in a call to recently retired NHL player Jack Skille. Jack hasn’t known me long enough to try to dissuade me from delusional goals. And Jack knows people who work with serious athletes. He introduces me to a physical therapist named Andrew Libs, who’d recently moved to Utah after a stint at Stanford, where he’d worked in the lab of Dr. Andrew Huberman, a guy that both Skille and I listen to on a podcast (and think is wicked smart).
Skille connects me with Libs, who works at a physical therapy clinic called Motion in Park City. I describe over the phone what I’m looking for to Libs. He listens for a long time, not interrupting once, which most people are wont to do because I talk a lot. But Libs listens, then says he would love to work with me at Motion, but unfortunately, he’s just taken a full-time position with the US Ski Team. Still, he says, Motion would be the best fit for me, delusions and all.
I drive up the hill, past the cluster of Kimball Junction and on over to Highway 40, which scoots past the busy ski town’s eastern flank. One exit down, I steer through a roundabout onto a frontage road, then drop into an industrial park where Motion is fronted by a high, frosted-glass garage door and three well-signed parking spots. I step through the front door immediately into a gym setting: rubber floor, medicine balls, dumbbells, and squat racks. Spin bikes and force plates, and on the wall, a large placard with a navy blue background that reads Team USA and features the American flag and Olympic rings. There’s no waiting room, no coffee table with last year’s Parade magazine. This looks like a serious place —a space where athletes work hard to return to their sport.
Athletic trainer Courtney Parker wears her hair in a no-nonsense bun and is attired in trim workout gear. She ushers me to the rear of the large, high-ceilinged space, where she sits me on an examination table and inspects my knee. As she listens to me describe my background and goals, she nods and measures the circumference of my swollen knee. What a drag it must be to listen to one after another delusional has-been and never-were athletes spout off about their sporty prowess.
Not that having empathy for her circumstance curtails me one iota.
Smiling, she has me lie back on the table as she grabs a clear plastic device that looks like a protractor with two arms (one stationary, one movable) and a central hinge that I will later learn is called a goniometer. She lines it up with my knee joint, one arm along the thigh, the other along the lower leg, and reads the degrees at the hinge.
Eleven degrees from straight, she says as she types it into a laptop. That’s not bad.
Then, placing a hand on either side of my knee, one on the shin and one on the thigh, she presses down until I whimper.
Okay, she says, we can already get you to about five degrees. That’s good.
She then guides my foot toward my butt, finding the limit of flexion, and then bending my knee just a bit further until the whimper slips out again.
You’re already at 100 degrees. That’s a good start.
She goes on to explain that these numbers will be important benchmarks for me in the coming weeks. The goal is to straighten my leg to zero and maybe even a bit more (apparently, some hyperextension is healthy), and eventually be able to bend to 135 degrees, which is what you need to touch your heel to your butt. Along the way, however, are a couple of significant benchmarks: 110 degrees to walk and go up and down stairs, and 120 degrees to pedal a bicycle.
While we’re talking goals, I ask her how long it will be before I can skate, surf, and ski.
You still have to get the other knee done, right? She asks.
Scheduled for September 11, I tell her.
Okay, she says, from that day, plan on at least four months to skate, five months to surf, and six months to ski. And that’s just doing the activity, not getting back to full speed.
I make a mental note of those predictions. Already planning to beat every one of them. Did I mention that self-delusion is my superpower?