38. How The Tilt Tables Have Turned

One day early Decemberish, Laura decided to try me on a tilt table. Now, I'd been put on a tilt table before, way back in neuro intensive care in Sheffield, so I knew exactly what to expect. It's like a normal physio bed-table thing (plinth), but it has a rest for your feet to go on. You lie on your back, and are strapped down, then the table has a remote control to move it from horizontal to vertical. In the end you are standing upright, the straps holding you in place. Whilst this is done, your blood pressure is taken at regular intervals, to check you aren't panicking, or about to pass out. (This can happen if you've spent too much time lying down.) Every time I was tilted, my blood pressure was rock solid. Sorry, but I've been on way scarier rides in my time.

To put me on the tilt table, Laura was helped by another young 'senior' called Rachel. I feel like any first impressions she had of me were fairly accurate: trying to crack any joke I could, and trying not to giggle (at my own jokes). I was alternately comparing the experience of being tilt tabled as to being put on a torture table, wearing a straight jacket, and being a vampire rising from its coffin. It must be so tiring being a physio; they must have heard all the jokes a million times. The aim of a tilt table, by the way, is to see how a patient can bear their own weight. I think I had to practise shifting my weight, standing centrally, and trying to hold my legs straight without my knees buckling. My left-side weakness meant I was rather lop-sided. I liked to close my eyes to concentrate. Rachel thought I was fainting.

It was about this time as well, all the soles of my feet started peeling off. My hard-earned finger calluses from playing the guitar had peeled off a month before, now it was the feet's turn. It was sole destroying. It was an unpleasant reminder that I wasn't walking around, and quite an unexpected impact of this. It was genuinely one of the saddest things of the year. The thickness of my soles, testament to years of activity and hiking around, gone in a matter of weeks. Don't take those toes for granted. I had a surreal conversation about faith with some physios whilst lying flat on my back, as cream was being rubbed into my cracking feet.

Moving swiftly on. Soon it was the end of Laura's student placement with the end of term  in December. I was off-ward when she finished, but she left me a nice note. Rachel started to become the physio that did the most sessions with me. (The physiotherapists tag teamed, unlike the occupational therapists, so I had sessions with all of them, but Rachel was my main boss.) I think we entertained each other. I remember how unfortunate it was when I could first start moving my elbow. I could only ever bend it when lying supine. It would be straight, and I could floppily bend it up to slap my boob. It looked ridiculous.

I'll never forget one festive session, with Christmas in the air. I was practising my sitting balance. I think some of the other physios were about, and probably the occupational therapist Sarah (she always seemed to be gravitating towards the gym, i.e. the fun). Rachel hid behind a curtain and burst out to the track 'Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree', wearing a Christmas tree balaclava/hat. I fell over laughing. Then I wanted to wear the Christmas tree hat, and wiggled my head whilst the therapists all rocked around me. We were definitely in the spirit of the season.

Upshot of a massage bed a.k.a physio plinth