All Good Things Must Come to an End

I received a letter from MediCare on August 27 stating I had reached $1700 of the$1880 allotment for physical therapy for the calendar year 2012.

I realize I have received a great deal of physical therapy at an extremely high monetary cost, but what was so disheartening was that this newly imposed cap on physical therapy was done retroactively. In other words, had we, my physical therapist and myself, known at the beginning of this year that there was a cap on the coverage, we would have spaced the PT sessions appropriately, thus spreading them out to last the entire year.

As of the writing of this blog entry I have no more physical therapy until January 2013, if then. Bear in mind I have been going to PT for way over a year continuously and have become somewhat dependent upon it.

I did not begin this blog segment to start a complaint session about the pitfalls of our MediCare system, but rather I wanted to explain to my readers that when you are in a situation similar to mine and have been going to PT at least once a week for over a year, you become accustomed to going.

It may sound strange to some people that you would look forward to physical therapy, but I in fact do look forward to it. I look forward to it for many reasons.

First and foremost it has helped me tremendously to regain my strength and put in place the necessary tools needed to learn to walk again.

Secondly, the encouragement and advice I received at PT made me feel good about myself and my accomplishments. As I have stated in previous blog passages, I have developed very special relationships  not only with my physical therapist, Chris, but also everyone in the physical therapy department from the receptionists Akella and Eddie Mae to the supervisor, Chuck.

I suppose a person could have treated PT as a way of reaching a goal, but it was so much more than that to me. I feel I took a situation that some could have chosen to dread and turned it into a fun and funny endeavor, laughing, joking, having fun and at the same time learning and also helping to teach others.

My weekly visits to PT became a part of my life's routine. I have developed relationships with a lot of people at PT and I know they looked forward to seeing me as much as I looked forward to seeing them.

I will probably return to physical therapy in 2013 periodically to have my progress monitored and I am happy about that.

One of the regrettable things about having a good attitude toward medical treatments and developing relationships with those who are helping you, is that inevitably it must come to an end. If I were honest with myself, I could have cut back on PT a while ago but I became dependent upon going, getting out of the house, and surrounding myself with people I grew to love and appreciate.

I am happy and thankful that I have met so many wonderful people through my experience as out patient at Rush University Medical Center's Physical Therapy Department.

I hope I have touched the lives of those whom I have had the peasure of interacting with as much as they have touched my life.

By the way, Chris you still have not written the guest blog spot you promised me you would. I am sure you will get to it.

Heartfelt thanks and love to those at the Physical Therapy Department at Rush.
Love, Glenn

*To post a comment click the comments button below, to contact to me personally write to me at: glennrtinc@yahoo.com