Friday, July 12, 2013

Physical Therapy (playlist)


My compilation of songs to get me moving and doing my physical therapy for knee replacement!

Music Therapy

I’m recovering from a full knee replacement three weeks ago. It hurts and is a VERY SLOW recovery. And it makes my back hurt like mad because of limited range of motion and pre-existing spinal stenosis. I’m also bored and cranky. About a week after coming home, my husband opened up his computer and started playing some BB King. I immediately felt better. I realized I had hardly listened to any music. I’d been distracting myself with TV. Couldn’t concentrate enough to read. In spite of this I didn’t really do much about it. Made a few jokes on Facebook about a Physical Therapy sound track, and looked up “Hurts so Good" (best PT song ever). Last night really sucked. I slept a total of maybe four hours and my back was screaming in pain. Woke up sobbing and really upset at 4:00 am. After I got sick of my self-pity, I thought, “this is stupid," and sat down to make a playlist of “happy" music. So since about 6:00 am (sorry neighbors) I’ve been listening to “Walking on Sunshine", “G-Bop", “I’m a Winner", “Your Sister Can’t Twist (but she can rock and roll)", “Let’s Get Loud", “Master Blaster", “Shining Star", “Keep on Movin’" and, of course, “Come on Eileen". Not only has my mood improved incredibly, you simply can’t help but feel good and get moving when you hear James Brown get down on “I Feel Good". And Chubby Checker sure helped my back with “The Twist". Now why on earth doesn’t Physical Therapy incorporate more music? I swear I’ve had more fun moving, walking, twisting, and doing my excruciating exercises this morning, than you can imagine. Let’s Get Physical! (whoops! I think I’ll leave that cheesy number OFF the set list, though!)