The Grudge: Part XVIII

I don't like to hold grudges, but apparently my body does. My physical therapist tells me there's no reason why I should still be having this much trouble with my plantar fasciitis.

"You're young!" he says as he tries the last thing he can think of before sending me to consult with a surgeon.

"It's great to be young!" I tell him as he "aggressively" treats my stubbornly stiff tendons. It's a good thing that I'm not involved in espionage because I wouldn't handle torture well.

"I'd hesitate a lot to send you to a surgeon," he tells me, "because you obviously don't heal very well."

This is true.

I imagine my powers of anti-healing have a lot to do with over six years of increasing sleeplessness caused by my friendly battle with chronic pain. My body is becoming more stiff and brittle, and it simply can't repair itself, causing me to consistently add to my growing collection of injuries. I would rather be collecting those last five state quarters I don't have.

After not seeing the physical therapist for several months due to financial issues, I returned in pretty much the same condition he'd last seen me in, which baffled him. "I mean, you're using the shoe inserts and stretching it all night with the brace and even doing the strengthening exercises. There's no reason why it should still be like this."

"Remember, with me, nothing can be easy!" I say, and he laughs.

When he told me he wanted to try really aggressive treatment for four weeks, he said apologetically, "You're not going to like coming here." We've been discussing other things he's said that we could use for our marketing materials for this treatment, such as, "This will hurt a lot" and "You're pretty much just coming here for pain."

I've never really been one for holding grudges. My mom was a master at it and my sister is, as well. I decided to take after my father. He doesn't really hold grudges because it's too easy to get distracted. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I can't maintain the energy it takes to remember being mad at someone for more than a few minutes at a time. My forgetfulness used to drive my sister crazy. She couldn't understand how I could forget things so easily. I couldn't understand how she could hold onto them for so long.

With only one mostly-working arm (and one fully-unreliable arm), I thought I definitely didn't have what it took to hold onto things, but apparently my body remembers. I am one stubborn, contradictory, ornery being.

Now, off to the next overnight shift. When that's done, I'm heading to the PT place at 6:50am, so he can tape my foot up again. He's coming in early. Poor guy deserves combat pay; he's going to hurt his fingers trying to defeat my grudge one of these days.