Disconnections

Sometimes we have to disconnect to reconnect.

In early September, I spent a week camping, canoeing, and fishing in Canada's Quetico Provincial Park, which is due north of Minnesota and consists of 2 million acres of lakes, trails, and streams.

And no motors.  Which means that if you are in Quetico, you got there under your own power.    With lakes everywhere, canoes are the only practical form of transportation.

Imagine a place where there are no roads, no vehicles...where the only sounds you hear are those made by nature and each other. 

A place for listening to loons, whose call is beautiful yet haunting.  Making new friends.  The simple joy of paddling.  Camping, cooking, and sitting by the fire.

Have you ever gazed at a night sky when the nearest artificial light might be 30 miles away?  The stars are so bright you can reach out and touch them.  I would often awake in the middle of the night, when the moon had set, and see more stars than you can count in a lifetime.

Solitude so absolute it could be disconcerting.  Isolation so deep it can both enhance the experience and scare the beejeebuss out of you. 

It is a fisherman's paradise but lest you think this kind of trip is for everybody, let me tell you about a little thing called "portages."  On a portage, you pick up everything you brought and carry it between the lakes.

Often through mud bogs, across fallen logs, and up steep hills, all while traversing fields of rocks.  On one memorable trail, I sunk up to my hip in mud with a canoe and a backpack on my shoulders.  It probably took 20 minutes to dig me out.

Did I tell you there was no electricity, no running water, and no "facilities?"  With that said, I'd do it again in a minute.  It was wonderful and amazing and breathtaking.

But before you go, you've got to disconnect.   Disconnect from the internet, turn off your cell phone, and tell your family that they won't see you or hear from you for a while.

At first, it's strange.  For the first couple of days, I felt for that familiar buzz on my right hip that indicates a message or call coming in on my cell phone.  I was sure there was an e-mail that required my immediate attention or an important decision that needed my input. 

But about the 3rd day, the wilderness started working its magic.  I forgot about meetings, appointments, and alarm clocks.  Frustrations?  Gone.  Problems?  On vacation.  When day-to-day existence is reduced to the very basics, you start to appreciate what is really important.

Like family and home and good food and toilets.  I'm glad I went.  I'm glad I'm home.

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National Physical Therapy Month

I am both a physical therapist and an athletic trainer.   Maybe you knew that already. 

I spend my days in the where I have my physical therapist hat on most of the time.  I've been practicing (now that's a strange use of the word) physical therapy for almost 34 years now and I really don't have any plans to do anything else anytime soon.  Retirement is for somebody else--somebody that doesn't enjoy their work as much as I do.

I am still thrilled to walk into the room of someone I might not know, examine them, decide how I as a physical therapist might help them, and then set into place a treatment program.  Part scientist, part teacher, part coach, I am only as good as my ability to get you better. 

October is National Physical Therapy Month and in telling you a bit about me, maybe you will learn more about physical therapy.

I graduated from UT Health Science Center in Memphis in 1977 when it was the only physical therapy program in Tennessee.  There are now four others, Belmont, UT-Chattanooga, ETSU, and Tennessee State University. 

In the late 90's, the entry-level physical therapy degree became the doctoral degree.  In other words, everyone that graduates today receives the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree.  In 2008, I got one of those too.  Yes, it's technically Dr. Black now but I usually insist that everyone calls me Joe (yet it usually turns out to be joeblack, one word-the curse of single syllable first and last names). 

There are a lot of specialty areas in physical therapy.  Pediatrics, primarily working with handicapped children.  Neurologic Physical Therapists who work with those having had strokes, spinal cord injuries, or head injuries.

There are those that focus on vestibular problems, balance issues, wounds, TMJ problems, lymphedema and the complications often accompanying cancer and cancer treatment. 

There are inpatient therapists that work in a hospital and outpatient therapists that work in clinics and others that work in home health, schools, skilled nursing facilities, and a variety of other settings.

Our biggest specialty area is orthopedics and even in that there are subspecialties.   I fall into one of those as I have specialized in extremity orthopedics and sports.   My day is pretty much filled with taking care of those with shoulder, knee, foot, and ankle problems.  Many of those are our athletes.

Other Orthopedic Physical Therapists specialize in taking care of those with spinal problems.  Over 31 million Americans will seek health care for low back pain this year.   Physical therapists are at the forefront of taking care of those problems, using exercise, education, and manual techniques based on evidence and research.  

We take care of those with minor sprains and those with catastrophic injuries.  We see people before surgery after surgery, and all the way to their return to full function. 

In a nutshell, physical therapists help you regain the life you want.   A life without disability or dysfunction.

I'm proud to be a physical therapist.  This profession has taken me places and provided me with opportunities that were beyond my wildest dreams.  That and I get to help people get and stay healthier.    

How lucky can one person be?

Politics as usual? I don't think so.

The recent budget crisis in the United States Congress was ugly.   It was partisan politics at its worst.   I saw a political cartoon recently that showed an elephant and a donkey in a little convertible driving straight toward a big transfer truck labeled "budget crisis."   The caption read "so, who's going to blink?"

So then the legislative branch (the House and Senate) and the executive branch (the President) finally got together and reached a compromise in which no one claimed victory.  Oh, they tried to spin it as a victory.  The Republicans feel that the reduced spending was a victory and the Democrats feel that raising the debt ceiling was a victory but hopefully, at the end of the day, the American people are the winners.

I mean, come on folks.   How can we keep spending more money than we take in?   Oh sure, it works for a while.  And then the bills come and sooner or later you've got to pay up.   So you can either spend less than you take in (reduce spending) and slowly pay off your debts or you can increase your income (in this case, raise taxes) and pay off your bills that way.   What the government seems to have done is to do both, which hopefully will work.

 After a fair amount of experience in politics, I can tell you that compromise is a necessary part of the legislative process.   When everybody goes away unhappy, it is likely good legislation.  Keep in mind that we often find completely opposite opinions on nearly every subject.   But instead of both being wrong, both are quite possibly right.  

There is not much "right" and "wrong" in political arguments (just different approaches or different perspectives) but way too much "I'm right, you're wrong."

I spend a lot of time in our state's capitol and I've grown to appreciate the political process at least as it related to a legislative agenda.  But getting legislation passed is like making sausage:  You don't want to watch it being made.   

The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States includes the provision that every citizen has the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  I would like to propose legislation that would add that we should have "the pursuit of healthiness." 

I think life, liberty, and happiness are dependent in no small measure to healthiness.  I see very few unhealthy people that are happy. 

I'd like to see legislation passed that requires everybody to eat better (and by better, I mean healthier), to exercise daily, and to lead healthier lifestyles.   At the risk of stepping on individual liberties, I would like to see smoking ended, roads where no one drives impaired, and guns necessary only for recreational purposes.  

I'd like to see a world where no one goes to bed hungry (did you know that 925 million people in the world are hungry today?  And that 16,000 children will die of starvation today?).   I don't believe that "Universal health care" or "socialized medicine" is the answer but I do want to live in a country where the medical needs are provided for those that cannot provide them for themselves.

I wish I had all the answers.  What I do know is that I've never met anybody that didn't want to pursue life, liberty, happiness, or healthiness.   It's just that too many people think that it is their inherent right for somebody else to provide those things.

We don't "deserve" it, we've only got the right to "pursue" it.