An Hour In The Therapy Pool

Before my hip replacement, I was sent off to work with a physical therapist in a therapy pool to prepare for the great event. That experience cut my recovery time in half, and when the incision had healed, I headed right back to that 92 degree (F.) environment, and two years after the operation, I try to get there three times a week.

When I was a newbie, I was unsure what the rules and expectations were, so I spent a lot of time observing when the therapist and I weren't working. For some period of time, my presence in the pool was not acknowledged; then one fine morning, I got a couple of nods. Nods turned to smiles, and eventually one of the old hands smiled and said, "You seem to be coming here quite a lot...." I knew I was on the doorstep of acquaintance.

Pool life was even better after the therapist had trained me to my program, and I was working out alone. Acquaintance led to conversation - sometimes interfering with my workout - and slowly my network of new acquaintances grew.

There was one mediating factor in all this - simply put, when you are surrounded by the able bodied, and those whose body parts don't work well, don't work, or have gone missing, you are grateful for whatever you are able to do...and I believe that's true of everyone in the pool. I've never heard many complaints from others about their problems - it is what it is, we are who we are, and almost everybody seems to want to get on with life as best as he or she can.

After the surgery I was welcomed back. "Where have you been? Long trip, huh? Did we scare you away? Nice to see you." I realized something I should have known for months: The pool turns out to be this odd, ephemeral, constantly changing support group, mainly of strangers, with acquaintances and friends mixed in. For an hour or so, we ignore our troubles while we work on them and then return to the parts of our lives where we are more aware of our physical deficiences.

It's the physically and intellectually handicapped kids you see that alter your perspective the most. Always working with a therapist, they (and their families) are travelling down a hard road. The therapists are infinitely patient and supportive, and over time, one can see improvements even from a distance. One cannot leave the pool without a far greater sense of acceptance of whatever problem one might have.

It's true that most of us are codgers, and from time to time one of us falls off our perch. There are notes, flowers, and sadness, but the work of the pool never stops.

Some of us work out and feel better, some of us chat like geese and feel better, some of us swim laps and feel different - and better.

Without the experience of the pool, most of us would lacked such a clear path to accepting what we can do in our lives and to resolving to become better at it.