One new hip = 7 physio visits

Catherine purchased this Troll for me.
It reminded her of me.
Wikipedia says trolls are rarely helpful to humans.
Of course that makes me laugh.
No wonder -- look at the arthritis in her fingers and toes!

Since everything has changed about the way that health care is delivered, and since I had my operation back in January, and since I had 3 months in which I had to access the 7 physio visits that new hip that patients get, I thought I had lost out on that service.

But I got a phone call saying that the 7 “physio-visit-gift” is still on, if I began to access it before June.

I am not watching the calendar close enough to even know what month I am in anymore, sometimes scrambling through the pages of my daybook back in April or even February and wondering where those days even went to.

But when I got the call from the South Health Clinic to access physio, I picked the phone right up to make an appointment.

The nurse suggested the clinic on 14th Avenue, since it is close to my house.

I have visited Physiotherapist Shaleen Kaur in the Bowness Centre, but it is an hour bus ride to get there.

However, in these days, the physio comes to make a home visit through Zoom, so the nature of the visit is changed.

I take my handouts and get them close to the camera so she can see which of the exercises I am doing.

I tilt the screen so that she can watch me walk and see how pronounced my limp is and have her tell me how to fix that.

I tell her that I have not figure out how to do the Reverse Clam Shell and tilt my upper hip, as the instructions say I should.

So she goes to the front desk, locks the clinic door, brings the front desk receptionist to the back to hold the camera so that Shaleen can be seen, and then she gets up on a bed in the clinic and demonstrates Reverse Clam Shell.

This seems strange to me, for some reason – never having seen a procedure like this before, but it works. In fact, it was inspiring. She made me write down which exercises I am to do during the week, telling me 4 sets, 10 each time, rest every other two days. And then she asks if I got that. If I didn’t, I have it written down, so I am OK. And my home physio workout seemed to leap ahead this week. Thinking about the whole session, there was an odd moment when she moved in close to the camera and I got an extreme close-up of her face and I thought, now I would never have had that view in the real world. Not that closeness. The physio felt so good today, I would like to do a little more of it, but there is some danger in doing too much, so I resist … until tomorrow.

Just sign me Zoom Physio Grandmother.