I started something new yesterday: physical therapy. My neurologist suggested this late last spring and I’ve been putting it off, for reasons that I’ll explain in just a minute. But first: the good parts.

Although my physical therapist can’t do anything to help me with my foot drop, she thinks she can help me with core strength and overall stability. I’d LOVE some extra stability! And as things progress (hopefully slowly) she can also help me remain balanced, so that I’m not causing new problems by overcompensating for the ones I already have. So it’s weekly PT from now on.

But here’s why I kept stalling about it. Most people I know go to a physical therapist to solve a problem. They strain a knee or an ankle, work on it for a while, and then get back on the bike/skis/track/whatever. That’s not the case with me. Starting physical therapy is the beginning of a process that will likely never end. Right now we’re talking about core strength and extra stability, but unless there are some major medical breakthroughs in the coming years, eventually we’ll be talking about how to keep walking at all. Or what happens after that. That’s not easy to think about, but now that this process is underway, it’s also hard not to think about. So now I have weekly reminders of what’s coming. Necessary but unwelcome reminders.

Damn.

Anyway, rather than ending on that depressing note, I’ll share one more bright side. As my dad would say: you don’t just stand on the tracks and wait for the train to hit you. You do everything you can to get out of the way. I can’t necessarily get off these tracks, but it feels good to at least be doing something. PFA.