I haven't gotten much done this week because I am trying to finish up my case report for school before the end of my internship. I'm almost done. In fact I am probably 7/8 done with this thing but it seems like the closer I get the less enthusiastic I am about finishing it. Basically, a physical therapy case study is where you follow a patient through their course of therapy and document what you did so that other clinicians can learn from it (if you get it published). I just need to do this in order to graduate. In fact, I need to do two but I won't start the second one until I start my second internship in 2 weeks. So I definitely need to finish this one before then. I gave myself this weekend to finish up the entire rough draft.
It has been a struggle. Several inches of fresh snow has fallen so I have to listen to Sparta whine every 5 minutes because she wants to go outside. The cat has been laying across all my piles of papers (which are carefully organized into "need right now", "may be of some importance later" and "just junk but you never know").
So because I'm so bad about writing papers and tend to procrastinate a lot, I haven't gotten very many workouts in this week. I did make sure that I got my 3 strength workouts in for my leg. Those usually last about 2 hours and end with a bag of ice and some electrotherapy (for swelling). On these days I have been warming up on a bicycle and ending with about 15 minutes on an elliptical. So I'm getting a little bit of everything in, except for swimming. Once my next internship starts I plan on getting to the pool 3-4 times a week. Right now the only time I have is on the weekends and that has been when most of my case study writing has been taking place.
Once my next internship starts I'm also going to have to change up my regular strength workouts. Since I won't have access to the clinic and all its equipment I am going to creative with my workouts. I belong to a gym so I have all the weights and machines that I need. I am thinking about attempting yoga again and now that I have changed the batteries in the Wii Fit board, I am going to use that to work on balance. I don't think that if I hadn't gotten injured I would be thinking so much about all these different aspects of strength. I doubt that a lot of people when they are going to the physical therapist do. Their given an exercise and they do it. They may like it, they may not, but a lot of times people don't question why we give them what we do. This is especially true when it comes to some of the odder exercises. Granted, some are just other ways to work on strength. Others though are meant for neuromuscular training. THe thing that I notice most about my knee is that unlike its counterpart, I don't have a good sense of where my knee is in space. It could be bent 30 degrees or 90 degrees and it still feels pretty much the same. That is one of the issues with this type of injury. You lose a lot of the proprioceptive information that comes from that joint. That is why if you don't rehab it correctly, you're more likely to injure it again. After what I have been through with this stiff knee, the idea terrifies me. I keep telling my CI, Dale, that this was my last knee surgery (surgery total) for me. I never want to have to do this again. He, of course, laughs but I made it 30 years before I had this injury. Now, knowing what I have learned about training, I don't intend on letting something like this happen again.
Okay, time to get back to this case study. If I work consistently I should have this done before 11am today and that will give me time to go to the pool this afternoon.
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