twosmallmonsters

The news has gotten me down. It seems that sad, mean, ugly, and mistrustful things are going on everywhere. I am beginning to generalize it to the entire human race. My first instinct is that I want to curl up in a blanket and hibernate through it all. Really helpful coping strategy, right? But downstairs in the therapy gym of the hospital, I find the souls of people who do not curl up and flee from the world despite their traumatic head injuries or loss of extremities or inability to contract their muscles anymore. Two in the afternoon and the gym is a lively bunch of people who chat about sports, hobbies, their yards & dogs, and their prior work lives. The noise level is that of a junior high cafeteria. I never saw so much enthusiasm and excitement in my own patient until he saw another peer walk for the first time in 126 days. "Holy macarole, he's walking!" my patient exclaimed three times in a row, almost falling out of his own chair. The rehab patients notice the slightest gain of movement in their peers and encourage each other every step of the way. What I first thought was becoming a gentlemen's club (men sitting in therapy talking about sports) has now included the lovely women of the floor. There is a camaraderie that none of us therapists can even touch.