Evidently I Am Weird


An odd thing happened in Physical Therapy today.

I was negotiating with the PT, because now that I’m on my third physical therapist I’ve found out what works for me. I like the numbers.

How many of these stretches will you be doing? Five sets of three? Fine.

Will you give me a three second warning? Yes? Good.

And I get to count how long it takes, not you. I’ll count to twenty, then we’ll rest, right? Thirty? Twenty five. Okay, thirty, but I’ll tell you when I’m done resting.

So we got it all worked out so there were no surprises, and then on the first round he decided to increase the pressure every ten seconds. Fine. FINE. Just as long as I know what’s coming.

We did fifteen sets of thirty seconds. For the second to last one, he pushed really hard the last ten seconds. I was squirming in pain already, and then he pushed more, and it got so ridiculously painful I laughed for the next ten seconds.

For the last time, he did it again, and I laughed uncontrollably again, along with some uncontrollable cursing.

WHO LAUGHS AT PAIN? I DO, evidently.

I looked it up and it seems common. Women report laughing during childbirth. I’ve never laughed at intense pain before. I’ve laughed at Gary’s intense pain, of course, but never my own. It wasn’t funny at all, it was painful, but so absurdly painful I laughed. Like a Nazi or something.

Here’s the upside: on the last one I was counting my three sets of ten, and the PT claims I counted “nine ten eleven one two…” So that means I get a credit of one second on Friday.


4 responses to “Evidently I Am Weird”

  1. Okay, I can’t find the original post to comment on, so I’m hijacking this one. Sorry. We bought a new bed this weekend, and thanks to you having recently made me aware that they are now “no flip”, I was able to act as if everyone knew this already when the salesmen mentioned it. Meanwhile, my husband looked flummoxed by the development. Thanks for keeping me up-to-date on cutting edge mattress facts!

  2. I laugh at pain all the time. There’s levels. There’s swearing, then laughing, then faces, then other words because you can’t think of swearing, then tears, then screaming aloud, not really forming any words.
    If I’m just swearing, my trainer ignores it. He knows the drill.

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