Who hasn’t lied to their physio? Come on, it’s not like lying to God or pretending you haven’t had the last piece of cake when you jolly well did, lying to the physio is like telling the truth about a certain red suited man who comes down the chimney. I let my kids find that out for themselves and I took the same approach with the physio. As an explanation I feel it’s important to divulge the lying-to-the-physio bit didn’t come till well on in the relationship when I’d decided paying $70 every couple of weeks was stretching a relationship I thought had gone about as far as it could go at least two visits earlier. I wasn’t always like this. At the start I was gagging for more. More exercises, more time, more pain – you name it, I want this knee working like it used to thank you very much, and I did everything she said. We even went out and purchased an exercycle. Believe me, nothing says commitment more than a chunk of white metal with pedals and an impossibly high seat sitting proudly in the corner of your living room where the (extremely necessary) wood basket used to sit. I got willingly talked into purchasing the most expensive rubber band ever made and if I hadn’t had them already, I’d have even gone out and bought the right clothes. So we started off on the right foot and immediately the dodgy knee got better. It could’ve been because she talked me into taking regular anti-inflammatories but whatever it was, she was the direct cause of the improvement and I was like a labradour with a sniff of a sausage, eagerly turning up for more. But after a while I started to think I’d learned all I was going to learn. Everytime I went it was the same questions to which I gave the same answers. How are the exercises going? she’d ask. Great. Do you do them everyday? Yes (Truth). To which she replies, I can see how much you’ve improved. (little glow of personal pride usually crept in there) And what about going to the gym? Yep, I say, still going at least once a week, sometimes twice, (also the truth) Excellent. Don’t over-do that, which was a comment I thought a bit unfair because a good goss at the gym is the main reason I go. Then she starts with the bike. ‘Are you using the exercycle?’ Yes, I say. Everyday. (Truth) And that was fine until that fateful day when she asked, How long do you bike for now? Everyone knows the answer to that and everyone knows that pissing off the physio means she just massages the sore bits a little bit longer than necessary. Twenty minutes, I say which was so far from the truth forked lightening should have come down from the sky. And our relationship ground to a halt. It wasn’t that she didn’t offer another appointment – I could see she was primed for it, but I didn’t have the heart to keep lying. And now, 8 weeks on, I can honestly say, I should’ve done the twenty minutes on the bike everyday. But I was sidetracked by Dr Michael Moesley who loves exercise about as much as I do and he reckoned three bursts of 20 sec hard-out biking was all you needed to save your life. And the man is right. I’ve stopped taking my BP meds because it’s dropped so much and I can’t stand up without the world taking a little spin. He’s probably right about fasting too but I’m not starving. Ever. But in championing only the 20 sec stuff I’d ignored the fact that it was the tedious 20 mins that was what actually would fix the knee. A truth I stumbled upon last week and now I feel a little bit sad that I lied to the physio. Then I think about that expensive rubber band, and the wheat bag that cost more than meal out and doesn’t quite sit properly on my knee and I reckon we both got something out of my disability. Even if it did take one of us a while to catch on.
Robyn Anderson 