KICK, KICK, STOMP, STOMP, ONE and TWO and CHA CHA CHA part 3

    As my intern and I shook hands for the first time, I wondered how soon she would realize I had a speech problem. I certainly didn't want to start off with a major stutter that would take a stomp, kick, or a thigh punch to get the word out. I made a promise to myself not to do any self-flagellation that would shock her too much.
    Even though I knew how absurd being so nervous was, I couldn't help feeling like I was showing up for a job interview that was going to be two months long. I tried to remind myself that I was the one in-charge and what she thought of me didn't even matter, but as soon as we met I was doing my best to entertain and impress her. 
   Her name, which I can't say, does not start with an m,p,l,d,b,t,f, or any other of the letters I have most trouble saying, so I said it with ease when we met. Let's just call her Val. From the personal information facts sheet she had mailed me, I envisioned Val as a tom-boy blond in gym shorts and cleats ready to throw a ball at me. Luckily I was wrong, which I usually am when imagining a situation that hasn't taken place yet. Val hid her jock tendencies well, and at first glance you would think she would be the one who couldn't catch a ball, not me.   
   Her first morning was spent filling out paperwork for the P. T. Department. Then, after lunch she was scheduled to just follow and observe me as I treated my four afternoon patients. Essentially, this meant she was going to be my portable audience, watching every movement I make and listening to every word I say in front of patients and in between treatments. It was my own reality show that I didn't want to be on. I love attention, but only if I'm in control of when it starts and when it stops. Being observed is the worst form of attention. It usually happens to you from behind and you can't tell what the observer is thinking, like being watched from a 2-way mirror. Having an intern is like being watched through a 2-way mirror, only the mirror is gone and you knows she's there. It just adds to my performance anxiety, which as a stutterer has always been at such a high level that only stutterers are able to manage it without exploding.
     I was ready for the worst, but treatment after treatment went flawlessly. Val watched as I sat on a rolling stool inside the parallel bars helping a patient walk 10 feet after she hadn't taken a step in over two months, as other therapists cheered and the patient's sister cried with joy. Then Val watched as I transferred a quadriplegic patient, who's neck was hurting and still in a hard collar, using a squat-pivot technique safely and painlessly from her power wheelchair onto a therapy mat. I made it look as smooth and effortless as Michelle Kwan doing a Triple Axel. The patient and her husband were thrilled that I did it without causing her any neck pain and wanted it videoed for everyone to see. I could see the awe in Val's eyes. My speech was almost flawless too. I had worked with both patients before so I didn't have to deal with introducing myself, and saying Val's name seemed to be easy enough for me. I did have a few small stutters during the treatments but I was pretty sure I was able to hide them in the movements I made to help the patients. The third patient was an eighty-year old man with a broken leg who I had been working with also. I helped him get up and down a flight of stairs for the first time using both hands on one rail and only bearing weight on his good leg. Miracle after miracle was happening. I felt like Jesus on one of His better days. 
     The last patient was one I didn't know yet but I was so pumped with confidence that I didn't even care. We reviewed the chart, and went over the patient's history, the diagnosis, and the precautions. The patient had Parkinson's Disease, had a urinary tract infection which was causing altered mental status, was hard of hearing and blind in one eye, and had gotten a bed sore at home from not moving in bed enough so he was on a special inflatable air mattress to prevent any further skin breakdown. 
     " This is a good example of a basic treatment. Nothing fancy like the last three. We'll just help him learn how to roll and come up and down on the edge of the bed," I explained, avoiding the words 'move' and  'sit' which are guaranteed  stutters for me.     
       I knocked on the patient's door and walked right in. " Hi, I'm Gary from P.T. and this is Val my student," I said quickly without giving myself a moment to pause and possibly stutter.
      " What? " the patient said, squinting at me. 
      "Gary from P.T.," I said with a louder voice.
      "What's P.T.? "
      " Fffffff." My throat closed on the 'ph' of physical and I couldn't get any sound out. I tried to start over three times but the only thing coming out sounded like a tire that was leaking. It was such a long stutter that I actually felt like I has having an out of body experience as I floated above watching myself struggling to get the word out.
      " I can't hear you!" the patient complained. " Speak up!"
      "Ffffff.." I got so desperate with my speech that I gave a stomp and a kick, and my foot accidentally hit the CPR EMERGENCY RELEASE button sticking out from the bed frame. With a loud, quick puff the big air mattress instantaneously deflated and the patient sunk down into the folds. I quickly hit the RE-SET button and the mattress re-inflated almost as quickly as it deflated. 
     "What just happened?" the patient asked, very confused. 
     " I fixed your bed. It was broken, " I said, not knowing what else to say.
     " Oh, well that's a good thing then. Glad you did. But you still didn't tell me who you are."
     " We're from Physical Therapy and we're here to help you," Val stepped forward.
     " Oh good. I like you people," the patient smiled and clapped his hands.
     Val turned to me and gave me a quick wink and smiled. " This is going to be the best six weeks."
     Usually I don't like to be rescued from a stutter, but I allowed Val to throw me a life-preserver this one time and one time only. I smiled back at her, more appreciative than embarrassed. I agreed with her that the next six weeks was going to be a great experience for both of us.




       

 
 

KICK, KICK, STOMP, STOMP, ONE and TWO and CHA CHA CHA - PART 2

   I didn't know if I should e-mail my intern before she arrived to warn her about my stutter. At least to explain about any kicking, stomping, or thigh punching that may occur. What if she was warned already? Maybe the woman in-charge of my hospital's intern program phoned the school to prepare them for the surprise. Imagine if my intern isn't even the one first assigned to me.What if none of the other Physical Therapy Assistant interns wanted a stuttering Clinical Instructor, and the intern I'm getting is being forced to come after drawing the shortest straw? Or maybe she's volunteering to be with me for extra credit, like I'm some kind of special project.
   The only things I know about this intern are what's on the personal facts sheet she filled out about herself-- how she spends time outside of school, her involvement in extra curricular activities, how she sees herself as a student, and what area of P.T. is of particular interest to her. For starters, she's 20 and I'll be 50 in 3 days. That means she could be my daughter, but only if I had waited until I reached 30. If I fathered her when I was 20 , she would be 30 now. That's how much older I am. She might even know a grandfather my age. The facts sheet also says she loves sports, nature, and family, which happens to be the three things in this world I like least. One of the more personal things she admits to is that she can't help being a perfectionist. I'm going to have to admit to her I can't help not being one.  And, as far as her particular interest goes, she wants to treat young amputee soldiers from the Middle East wars. I'm personally not a fan of soldiers, nor am I as skilled at treating amputations as I am with strokes, and the closest I've come to helping a Middle East casualty was once treating an Iraqi cab driver who lost 2 toes trying to stomp out fireworks on his front porch somewhere in South San Francisco where he lived. As far as I can tell, my intern and I have absolutely nothing in common. We definitely wouldn't be a match on E-Harmony.
   I decided it was a good idea to send the e-mail just to break the ice before she arrived, and joke about my stutter a little and how she and I are complete opposites. My co-worker and dear friend, Ali, was totally against the idea and was determined to stop me.
  "  It's just going to be something simple and funny. I know what I'm doing, don't worry," I assured her.
  " You saying don't worry always makes me worry, Gary. You forget that what's 'simple and funny' to you is usually shocking to other people, especially to a 20 year-old girl who doesn't even know you. I've had students before, you haven't. I've never contacted any of them in advance. You can't be like you are with me, or like you are with the women here. You'll write something that this girl will take the wrong way and tomorrow you'll be getting a phone call from her Supervising Professor, and the whole thing is going to blow up in your face. I'm telling you, Gary. Please listen to me. Do not email this girl. Trust me, I'm right about this."  
   " What makes you so right about this?"'
   She sighed and looked at me like it was the most obvious answer in the world. " Because I am always right, and you are always wrong."
     I paused and thought about it. " Hmm, good point," I agreed, having to admit that Ali does happen to be right quite a bit of the time. Her husband can attest to this.
    " Don't worry so much, Gary. She'll love you after she meets you, like everybody in this whole hospital does. You're going to be a great Instructor. You love being the center of attention anyway, even with your stutter. This is your big chance."
    A few of the other women I work with came into the back office after eating lunch and got in on the conversation to tell me how ridiculous I was being for worrying about my speech.    

"Your speech will putter, not a sound you will mutter, for a week you will stutter"

   " Oh really? Try stuttering for a week and get back to me. Then we'll see how you feel," I told them. If only I was Endora from Bewitched I would have swung my arms up and turned them into stutterers just so they could experience what I've had to go through.
    " All of you think it's easy because I make it look so easy. But believe me, it's not. I've been stuttering since I was six, so that's 44 years worth of stuttering. I must have stuttered on at least a million words. And I still have 20-30 years of stuttering left. That could be another million stutters!" I calculated, even shocking myself with the amount. "Just imagine how many patients I've had to stutter in front of. Thousands!"
  "But they all love you too, just like we do," Ali reassured me. Each of the other women named a different room of a patient who loved working with me.  
   "I know, I know. Of course the patients love me. If I wasn't as lovable, everyone would see how much more annoying my stutter would be. That's the bottom line," I explained. " I have to make everybody I speak to love me, which is almost more exhausting to do than stuttering." I happened to stutter especially long on the m of 'make' and 'more' which helped to drive home my point " You see how much worse my speech is getting by the minute? I can't say  'm's' now! Thank God my intern isn't named Maureen MacMannis from Marymount College." Everyone laughed as we left the office, which made stuttering on the added m's worth it. In the elevator up to see all our patients, Ali looked me in the eye. " No sending that e-mail, right?' she asked just to make sure.
   " Yes, I promise I will wait until I stutter in her face in person."
                                         
                                        *
                                               Part 3 on the way
 

KICK,KICK,STOMP,STOMP, ONE,TWO, CHA,CHA CHA. PART 1

 I hate being watched when I'm stuttering. How a stutter looks is even worse than how it sounds. It's far more of an assault on the eyes than it is on the ears. Stuttering is not that cute little thing Porky Pig does. That's called stammering, which is a playful, bouncy way of repeating a sound over and over again like, " f-f-f-fuck you P-P-Porky P-P-Pig ". Stuttering is the quiet, ugly sibling of stammering. The words get stuck in the vice grip of the muscular folds in my voice-box. To help get a word out, I sometimes have to throw my whole body into it. Heel stomping, chair kicking, thigh punching, table tapping, head bobbing, eye twitching, neck whipping, shoulder jerking, whatever it takes. For a few really bad stutters, I've had to bounce up and down like I was on an invisible pogo stick. It's Modern Dance at it's most primal with choreography that even Martha Graham couldn't follow. 
    I only allow myself the luxury of punching, kicking and bouncing if I'm alone on the phone when no one can see how gymnastic a stutterer can get. I actually have to be careful not to injure myself by kicking something too hard or bruising a limb. The worst is when I whip my head back and forth too quickly and a contact lenses flies out. It doesn't get more humiliating than that, especially when I had to ask for help to find it. Only my family and my boyfriends have witnessed my stutter in full throttle. It is something I hope they've blocked out of their minds, like they would do if they had seen their grandparents having sex, or another vision equally as disturbing. Being caught in the throws of a major stutter is probably the only thing that can still embarrass me. It has the power to immediately make me feel like I'm six years old again.  
    I tell you this because I am facing a great challenge right now. For 20 years I have loved working in Physical Therapy. I've helped thousands of people learn to stand and walk again, straightening out God's spitefulness one patient at a time. I couldn't think of a better job in the world for me. Except for one thing. Part of my job is to be a Clinical Instructor for an intern from a Physical Therapy Assistant college. In simple terms, this means someone who will watch me stutter eight hours a day for two months. It's what I've been dreading all these years, what I've finagled my way out of for two decades,and what has now finally caught up with me. For my own good, my Supervisor is taking a stand and won't let me weasel out of it this year. ( Remind me to sue her for making me do this as soon as I have time to find the clause in The Handicap Rights Act pertaining to cruel and unusual punishment, or was that The Constitution?)
    I've learned to use my stutter around the patients as positively as I can. I hold it up as my way of being ' perfectly imperfect ', and use myself as an example of having a great life even with a speech problem when my patients  are emotionally struggling over not walking or talking as good as they used to. Luckily, some of the patients who can't see or hear too well along with some of the ones who have brain injuries don't even realize I am stuttering. It also helps when the patients are still in bed, where they can't see how  I sometimes stomp on my own foot or kick myself in the shin to help get a stutter out.
   I'm not going to be able to get away with any of my stuttering strategies  when the intern is watching me, hanging on my every word. It's bad enough having the patients see my eyelids fluttering, jaw jutting and head bobbing when I'm stuck on a sound. Now I'm going to have a third party watching it all! I can only imagine how horrified the intern is going to be. I just hope I don't stomp on her foot instead of mine while I'm trying to say something to her.