May 24, 2005
Rehab
Ninety-five pound, five-foot-two CP finished a while back the first phase of her cardiac rehab program. She’s now well into the long stretch of its graduate “school.” She’s also back to gardening with zeal in our currently fine late spring weather.
When her doc learned that, he told her absolutely no more of her previous hefting of 40-pound bags of topsoil and fertilizer. Heedless of his admonition, her phys-ed nurses just yesterday hiked her upper-body exercise dumbbells to six-pounds each (the men get the two-pounders). For good measure, they increased the speed on her thirty-minute treadmill “stroll” and raised the grade to four percent, the kind for which even 18-wheelers down-shift and take seriously.
“Rehab” is an interesting notion. Perhaps the less stewardly side of it is that we take it for granted there’ll always be something there to rehabilitate. On the other hand and without any doubt at all, it’s an admission of hope, and hope gets a major piece of St Paul’s attention as a runner-up among equals.