Saturday, July 28
Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday morning, I had the immense pleasure of working one of my most dear patients, B. In the gym I would meet this 60+ gentleman, his feet sometimes dangling off a bright blue raised mat, and usually I could throw him an expression or witty line that would send him laughing so hard that he would grab his stomach with his "good" arm. His build, much like my own father's, was reminiscent of a football player 40 years out. He would literally giggle as I used every ounce of strength, torque, and leverage my little body had to pull his shoulders back, up, and down. These movements were often accompanied with what we later titled "The Rice Crispies" as his shoulder tended to snap, crackle, and pop.0 comments
As I sweated, shook, and fatigued over this shoulder and then his hand, we told hundreds of stories and jokes. We jabbered about dreams of becoming writers, validation techniques for Alzheimer's, his days in the military, and pet names we came up for people. At least once a session, we would have to wipe tears from our eyes we were laughing so hard. Usually someone passed by at this point to declare that therapy really shouldn't be that much fun; but anyone who knew B, knew therapy had its possibilities of being a riot. B's physical therapist and I were devastated yesterday when B's eight month stay came to an end. He shook our hands with a brilliant smile, told us if we came and visited him he would serve a cold beer, and promised to keep in touch. He left me with a military story to which I must credit him & share.
"There were hundreds of us eighteen year old guys who had just been recruited from Chicago. We were shipped down south to a military base and placed in a room where we yelled "Yes sirs" and whatever else those officers wanted to here. So one day they put us all in a line and gave us brand new pencils- no sharp tips, just blunt tips. Then they pointed out 5 pencil sharpeners and told us all to sharpen our pencils. So we all lined up to sharpen our pencils and 30 seconds later the officer blew his whistle and we lined back up.
The officer cruised over to a guy who had the unfortunate fate of being at the end of the line. His pencil was not sharpened and when he presented it to the officer, the officer knocked his fist right into this guy's face. Again we were told to sharpen our pencils and this time lines were not formed neatly behind one another- it was a fight to get to the pencil sharpener. The whistle was blown again and again, another guy was punched in the face.
So the third time, everyone scurried over to the pencil sharpeners but I stayed right where I was. I started chewing the hell out of my pencil. It was awful, wood and graphite was all over my face and in my teeth, but I kept chewing because I knew my pocket of men would be the next to get socked. Sure enough, 30 seconds later we were all to line up again. The officer came over to me and looked at my pitiful pencil and told me to write on a piece of paper. Well of course it didn't write, there was drool and splinters of wood all over it but I didn't get socked in the face. It was exactly what they had been looking for."
posted by Jenny Saturday, July 28, 2007
