Too clever by half, that’s my trouble.
lt had all looked so tempting, that wobble board with a maze sunk into its upper face. My challenge was to balance on top, moving two marbles in towards the centre, then back out to the edge. [The picture shows a similar model with a third marble] As usual, I tried a little too hard, lost my balance, and…Splat! “Ouch!” I cried, as I began to pick myself off the floor. Physio Jan came alongside me straightaway with a most concerned look on her face, telling me to go steady and easing me gently onto a chair. Was I alright? Could I still move my arm this way, that way…I’ve never quite lost the schoolboy mindset where you expect to jump straight back up and rejoin the class. I still don’t think of a fall as a serious occurrence, even after Jane’s debacle in town in which she fractured her wrist after a simple tumble. Afterwards, poor Jan had to spend a happy hour filling in an accident investigation and was most concerned that I report any symptoms that might develop later. None did, but the wobble board had a rest for a week or two afterwards.
-o-O-o-
Jan did, bravely, bring a wobble board back into service, this time a figure-of-8 version. But now it’s placed on a soft mat, and you’ve got to hold a rail whilst you balance on it.
The hardest exercise, for me, has been the pretend tightrope, in which I have to walk along a line across the mat on the floor, placing one foot heel-to-toe beyond the other, in turn. I’m so glad there’s neither a swamp of alligators nor the Niagara Falls underneath me. When you reach the end of the mat, you work your way backwards, hoping you don’t bump into one of your buddies doing the bouncing ball exercise.
The other exercise, worthy of Guantanamo Bay torture techniques, is the Sartorius Muscle Stretch in which you sit in a chair and raise the heel of your operated leg to your other knee. “Practice it at home,” says Jan, never one to let you stay for too long in your comfort zone. As soon as you learn to do it, “Now John, see if you can stretch your heel over the top of your knee…”
Eventually, I managed it.
Maybe this is why I no longer think twice about walking up and down steps, climbing styles, kneeling to pull up weeds. Why I can stand up in my bike saddle to climb hills. And why one day soon, I intend to climb back onto a horse again.
For my final exercise, Jan got out the clockface mat. Normally you keep your ‘non-operated hip’ foot on 6 o’clock and touch the other numbers in turn with your ‘operated hip’ foot. Oh no, that was too easy. She called out two numbers at once and made me jump onto them both like a frog.
-o-O-o-
It’s just over 6 months since my hip operation, and I now feel restored to the level of movement I enjoyed before my hip ‘went’ last May. So much so that Jan’s discharged me from the class because I’ve ‘met my objectives’. I shall miss the fun of plucking flying balls from the air as 8 recovering hippies and one physio sling them at each other at ever-increasing speed. As soon as we become familiar with the exercise, she introduces yet more balls, causing the activity in the small gym to become increasingly frantic.
We, the hip buddies, have become fond of each other. There’s been such an encouraging, supportive atmosphere that it’s felt like we’ve been there to pursue a hobby. I’ll miss them!
-o-O-o-
I feel such gratitude to my surgeon, to the staff at The Spire hospital, to the NHS and especially to Physio Jan who has set out her stall to help hip patients make a full recovery. I suspect she’s breathing a huge sigh of relief now I won’t be using her wobble board again!
How incredible I find it that our bodies are designed to heal themselves. As King David expressed it 3,000 years ago, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139 verse 14).
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