Chapter 2: Starting Rehab

Per his instructions, Jimmy calls the rehab facility and makes an appointment for 9:00 Monday morning. Luckily, it was his left knee that was damaged. Over the weekend he convinced Karen and Meredith to get him into his car so he could test driving. It was a challenge to get into the driver’s seat, but once settled he did a good job with the actual driving.

Just like the practice driving session over the weekend, Jimmy is able to safely drive himself to the rehab facility on Monday morning. When he arrived he saw a dozen handicapped parking spaces, with only two taken, right outside the front door. He started to rue his stubbornness at not taking the form the doctor gave him to get a handicapped permit for his car.

Jimmy is able to find a spot a row out and with an empty space on the driver’s side. It gives him some extra space to maneuver himself out of the car and retrieve his crutches from the backseat. It takes considerable effort for him to make his way into the main doors of the facility. As he enters, the receptionist cheerfully greets him from behind the desk.

“Good morning. Are you Mr. Gaylord?”

“Yes, ma’am, guilty as charged. I’m here for a 9:00 session.”

“OK, if you could come here for a sec so I can get your signature, then we’ll get you checked in.”

Jimmy crutches up to the counter and reviews the forms and then signs in the lines indicated. As he signs the forms the receptionist lets the rehab tech know he had arrived.

“Good morning, Mr. Gaylord. My name is Sharon and I’ll be working with you this morning.”

Jimmy looks up from the forms. He sees a buxom twenty-something woman wearing a floral top and stretch pants. She has shoulder-length brunette hair, a pretty face that seems a bit harder than her age would indicate, and a light coating of reddish lip gloss over an easy-going smile.

“Good morning, Sharon,” says Jimmy as he turns to face her and sees that she is standing behind a wheelchair.

“If that’s for me, I don’t think it is needed,” says Jimmy.

“Yes, sir, but we saw that you had to park in a non-handicapped spot and walk all the way into the building on your crutches. We’ve got a fairly intense session this morning and need to go to the second floor, so I’ll give you a ride to save your strength.”

Jimmy looks between the receptionist and Sharon and then relents. He hops in a half circle and then lowers himself into the seat, handing his crutches to Sharon.

“Are you settled?” asks Sharon.

“Yep, let’s go get me back into shape.”

As Sharon wheels Jimmy to the elevator and then into the rehab room on the second floor they exchange small talk. She learns that he is 84 years old, a widower of two years, and this is the first time he has had any kind of extended medical issues. He learns that she has been doing rehab work for about three years and is single.

Sharon wheels Jimmy to a stationary bike in the corner of the room. She pulls open the various Velcro straps holding his knee brace in place and then helps him onto the bike.

“Let’s get you started on the bike. If you can’t make a full circle of the pedals because of the swelling in your knee, use your good leg to provide leverage on your bad knee to help stretch it out.”

Sure enough, Jimmy is not able to make a full circle with the pedals. He pushes hard for a ten-count and then relaxes and spins the pedal the opposite direction before again pushing hard for another ten-count.

“Excellent,” says Sharon as she watches Jimmy start with the bike. “Keep this up for another five minutes and then we’ll move on to another exercise.”

After the bike Sharon situates Jimmy on a low, wide platform where she can help push and pull his leg in various directions to rehab the knee. The stress of the session is evident on Jimmy’s face as they work on getting flexibility back into the joint.

“You’re doing great,” she says. “The last exercise for today is probably the worst, but it is really effective.”

Sharon has Jimmy lay parallel to the edge of the platform with his bad leg closest to the edge. She then raises his leg and uses her shoulder as leverage as she pushes his leg toward vertical.

“Arrgghhh,” Jimmy mutters.

“Three ten-counts and we’re done,” says Sharon as she slowly counts to ten.

She repeats the process a second time, followed by a short rest, and then leans into his leg for a final stretch.

“One more good stretch and we’ll get your knee iced down.”

Sharon leans in hard to really stretch Jimmy’s knee. As she does a seam on her blouse rips open from her shoulder halfway to her waist. The top flies open exposing her light pink transparent bra that clearly shows the outline of her areola and nipple. Not wanting to cause possible harm by suddenly releasing Jimmy’s leg she continues with the ten-count. At ten she slowly releases the tension and then closes her shirt the best she can.

Jimmy responds first. “I’m sorry if I was staring.”

Sharon laughs. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I thought that blouse would be sturdier.”

“Even so, it’s not right for a for a gentleman to ogle a woman.”

Sharon has grabbed a sweatshirt off a nearby chair and zipped it so she didn’t have to worry about her torn blouse.

“Even if you didn’t ‘ogle,’ I’m sure you have seen plenty in your time,” says Sharon with raised eyebrows.

“I was happily married for over 50 years,” Jimmy starts to say.

“Sure,” interrupts Sharon, “but that doesn’t mean you didn’t get to look for five decades, and how many years were there before you were married?”

Jimmy looks at Sharon and she can see that he has a brief moment where his gaze seems to be lost in thought.

“Ahh, I see it. Tell me, Mr. Gaylord, who was she?” asks Sharon as she now sports an impish grin along with her raised eyebrows.

Jimmy again has a far-away look as Sharon retreats to the freezer and returns with ice packs for his knee.

“Ten minutes on ice and we’ll be done, but that doesn’t mean I’m done with you.” Sharon has a playful tone as she addresses Jimmy.

“Let’s see, I’m free on Wednesday at 9:00. Will that work for you?”

Jimmy grimaces as the ice causes searing pain to reverberate through his lower extremities, but he nods his agreement.

“Great, I’ve got you scheduled for Wednesday at 9:00. You’ll be working with me again. And on Wednesday, I want to hear all about your mystery woman.”

Even though Jimmy got a handicapped permit, he arrives at the facility by 8:40 Wednesday morning just in case he couldn’t get a space near the door. Luck was was with him as he not only got a handicapped space, but he got the space closest to the door. With a few days practice behind him, he is able to extricate himself from the driver’s seat and retrieve his crutches from the back fairly gracefully.

As he enters, the same receptionist is sitting behind the check-in desk.

“My Gaylord, good morning! Good to see you again.”

He works his way to the counter and says, “Please, call my Jimmy. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of each other the next few weeks.”

“OK, Mr ... I mean, Jimmy. Initial here and sign here and you’ll be all set for today. Sharon will be out in a few minutes.”

Jimmy does as instructed and then works his way over to a nearby seat to wait. A few minutes later Sharon comes around the corner pushing a wheelchair.

“For me again? I got a space near the door and can walk.”

Sharon laughs. “I’m sure you can, but the next week or two you’ll get chauffeured.” She stops parallel to Jimmy and locks the wheels.

“All aboard!” she calls out.

After Jimmy is seated she unlocks the wheels and they make their way to the rehab room.

“Have a good session, Jimmy” he hears from the receptionist. He waves in acknowledgment as they round the corner.

Like the previous session Sharon gets Jimmy onto a stationary bike and sets a timer for ten minutes.

“Just like Monday. If you cannot make a full rotation, stretch your knee in both directions.”

As he starts, Jimmy is just short of getting his knee to bend far enough to complete a full rotation of the pedals. After ten minutes he is getting very close to pushing through and getting that first full rotation.

“Look at you,” says Sharon as she turns off the beeping timer. “Next time you’ll be pedaling away like you’re in the Tour de France.”

She moves him from the bike to the padded bench and once again has him lay parallel to the edge so she can help stretch his knee.

As Sharon leans hard into Jimmy’s raised leg forcing it to stretch he starts to grimace, but he surprises her when he says, “I like your shirt.”

She can’t help herself as she laughs heartily at the comment. “Even though it’s not going to bust open and give you a view of my boobs? Even if it did, today’s bra is an old-fashioned, heavy-duty white one that probably has three times the fabric of most bikinis.”

Through clinched teeth Jimmy smiles and nods.

As they finish the current exercise and move onto a more passive one, Sharon brings up the topic of conversation they ended with last time.

“When we wrapped last time you said you had been happily married for over fifty years, but there was a look in your eye. There was someone else, right?”

Jimmy’s face remained passive and Sharon thought his brief opening into his personal life was a one-time occurrence. She thought she would try one more prompt and if he didn’t respond she would drop the topic altogether.

“If you don’t want to talk about this it’s OK. We can talk about sports or the weather, but I’ve found that if a patients talks about himself it helps take his mind off the exercises. I’ve also found that the more personal, the conversation, the more faster the sessions seem to go. So, with that in mind, one more question. Were you a virgin when you got married?”

Jimmy looks at Sharon in surprise. She clearly asked the question without lewd intent. She sincerely wanted to know about him.

He shakes his head “no,” almost imperceptibly.

“Well, then, let’s hear about what happened with this mystery woman,” Sharon softly coaxes.

Jimmy pauses again, thinking that he is about to tell a relative stranger a story he has never told another human being. Not even his wife Betty.

He finally starts in short bursts of words until he finally finds his rhythm.

“I was in high school. Our family was poor and we lived several miles from the school. I didn’t have a car so I had to ride the bus to and from every day.”

Sharon switched positions to stretch his good leg. She had explained that both legs needed to be worked to keep them about the same in terms of strength and flexibility. She nodded for him to continue as she leaned into his other leg.

“It was sometime after Christmas break, well into the spring semester, when the bus made an unexpected stop. A very pretty girl got on and sat in the first open bench a few rows in front of me.”

Sharon tells Jimmy she’ll do one more ten-count on his good leg and then they will move over to a sliding bench to do some inclined squats.