Physical Therapy Session: 1

My first physical therapy session went well enough, despite several potential setbacks.

First, I arrived at 10:00, just like my appointment card told me to, but due to a mix-up at the appointments desk I didn’t get in to Dr. Harpel’s office until 10:30. That meant that I didn’t get back to the office until 11:30 – which meant I missed 2 hours of work instead of just 1. I sincerely hope this is not a regular occurrence: I don’t have the time off to spare.

Plus, the x-rays and Dr’s report from my previous visit on Friday hadn’t been transcribed yet, so he did not have access to them – which meant he had no idea why I was there. Even without the x-rays he could tell that my neck was not right, so was able to do some work on me right away.

He did his exam, talked to me about what was going on, and gave me a few exercises to get started on. He explained that I needed to get the muscles around the neck and shoulder area strengthened up to support the spinal column and hopefully ease some of the tension causing the muscle spasms.

We made an appointment for Wednesday, by which time he was hopeful that he would have access to my files and would therefore be able to really start helping me. We’ll see…

One thing that impressed me greatly was that he remembered me from the last time I was there – which was back in 2006 right before I went to Costa Rica! That kind of memory really impresses me. I have a hard time remembering things that happened yesterday, let alone things from 4 years and who knows how many patients ago.