Zzzzzzap!

I had a more in-depth Physical Therapy session today. A lab assistant (I'll call him "Igor") laid me down on a table and hooked me up to one of those electrical-muscle-stimulator machines. Igor started putting electrodes on my left knee, and I said "you do know that's my good knee, right?" Great. And this guy is going to be sending jolts of electricity through my body.

Being electrocuted for 15 minutes wasn't exactly painful, but I wouldn't really call it pleasant either. When Igor was first hooking me up, he set it on a low setting and asked how it felt. It was like little ants on my knee. Then he turned it up. "How about that?" Then it was like little needles, but not painful. So he brought it up another notch. So I guess the game is to set it as high as possible before it gets painful. The problem is that time goes on, it gets more intense. So the "uncomfortable but not painful" setting became "ok, this is getting REALLY uncomfortable." Actually it wasn't all that bad, it's just freaky. It really feels like there is something physically massaging your skin.

The therapist then did some manual stretching and massage of my knee and leg. To quote myself, "it wasn't exactly painful, but I wouldn't really call it pleasant either." He was pressing down pretty hard at times and more than once I was worried he was going to break something. But everything seemed OK. He then walked me through some various stretching exercises.

Turns out his son is also doing Oceanside 70.3 this weekend and he'll be going down to watch. So I will have my own personal therapist on site. Could be useful.