Psycho Physio

Dear Diary,

I have always believed I had a high threshold for pain. Remember last Sunday, when I couldn’t move because every little movement put severe stress on my neck? Do you also remember why it got so bad? No, no, it’s not the usual excuse. I don’t spend enough time in front of my laptop or watching TV to have such debilitating neck pain. It was actually because I decided to get healthy. Yes, my decision to start going to the gym put me in this position.

But, like I said, I have always believed I had a high threshold for pain. And, like most of my beliefs, this one came crashing down faster than a North Korean rocket.

So, the neck pain, yes. This wonderful little bastard called ab-crunches did me in. Remind me to shoot the gym instructor, diary, who kept on insisting that the pain in my neck actually meant that it was working and that a few hundred more ab-crunches would ensure a reduction of at least two waist sizes.

The naive little (well, not so little, tee hee) me believed him and even shook my head vigorously, as per his advice, whenever there was any hint of neck pain. I am sure I told him I have spondylosis, but I don’t think he really heard me amidst all the shitty music in the gym.

Now, diary, the worst thing about spondylosis is that I can’t stay in one position (sitting/standing/lying down) for an extended period of time. Anything above two minutes and I feel uncomfortable and need to move, which brings in a whole set of other problems (pain with every moment, hello?).

Let me get to the point very quickly, diary, before I start wasting my time ogling at my articles for The UnReal Times. Oh, you didn’t know? Here, go see for yourself...but not now!

So, yes, the doctor (most likely a quack – I mean, what kind of a doctor prescribes bed rest? DUH!!), asked me to go for physiotherapy in case there was no improvement. So, I went for physiotherapy.

Nothing could have prepared for the torture I was about to go through.

Two pieces of equipment that looked like they were used in Afghanistan by the KGB to torture hapless locals during their invasion – one supposedly was to give me ‘heat therapy’ and the other, well regardless of what it is called, I’m going to call it the ‘shock machine’. Of course, it didn’t help that the physiotherapist was a grumpy old sadist with the scariest eyes ever. Even when she smiled, I knew a flower died and a rainbow abruptly ended somewhere. I also think she's single-handedly responsible for the extinction of unicorns.

And this is supposed to heal, it seems!

Diary, I want to tell you the horrible things that the shock machine is capable of. One, even if the shock’s being applied on your neck, your fingers would twitch, uncontrollably. The psycho physio, I am sure was revelling in her dark art and kept laughing in a deep-throated manner (although nobody else seemed to notice the laughter). Now, as time progresses, the electric current gets stronger. This makes several other places of your body twitch uncontrollably.

I wondered why I was being subject to torture – what kind of information would free me? So, I started ranting out all the bad things I did since childhood, including stealing money from my mom in school! This seemed to have the desired effect and the psycho physio stopped electrocuting me.

Of course, it is also entirely possible that I passed out a few minutes before I made the confessions.

I left the place with two realisations – one: I do not have a high threshold for pain and, two: hey I could move my neck a little bit.

Also, three physiotherapists are crazy.