Slice of Life 2025: 27 of 31- Ladder time

Throughout the month of March, I am participating in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge, an event hosted by the team at Two Writing Teachers. Every day in March, I will share a story and comment on the stories of other participants. Please join us in writing, sharing, reading, and commenting!

When Julia and I went to see her physical therapist-- for her knee, not mine-- the topic of ladder work came up. Julia had already mentioned it to me. "You'll need to do some ladder work," she'd said when I talked about my worries about not being able to move well on the tennis court any time soon. 

I'm still high-fiving myself for walking up the driveway and going foot over foot on the stairs, so the idea of ladder work? Not anytime soon. 

To give you an idea, I've grabbed a picture of a PT ladder from the internet and included it below. The idea is that you do various agility moves within the ladder rungs. It's harder than you'd think with a limb that is learning to move again. 

In any case, while I was at PT yesterday, I was paying attention to Jen and what she was doing. I'm nosy that way at PT, but when you're' just sitting there with ten minutes of heat or another ten minutes of ice, you have the choice of phone scrolling, watching the weather channel, or checking out the other orthopedic woes. I know other people pay attention to me, as well. Adele, an older woman who's been in a couple times when I've been there, has had to bear witness to my PT's (borderline inhumane) bending of my knee. I've tried to keep my moans in check, but I can neither confirm nor deny that I've made some noise no and then. Adele told me on Monday that she thinks of me when she wants to complain about her PT. (I'm not sure how to feel about that!)

Getting back to the ladder focus, but still as an aside, I was a Jen fan because she brought her 2 to 3-ish daughter in a stroller and that little girl spent the whole time in the stroller watching the goings-on and looking at her book. Not an iPad in sight. It was so refreshing! 

I finished my exercises on the staircase and headed to the squat wall as Jen's PT laid a ladder down on the floor for Jen. 

I couldn't help it. "A ladder," slipped out of my mouth. 

"You'll get there," the PT said, understanding my point. 

I did my squats, and I did the bike, and I worked through my lunges. And Jen skipped, hopped, and bounced through the ladder. 

"I want to do ladders," I said to Kate, my therapist, as she rigged me up the ice boot. 

"Yeah?" she said. "Let's do those on Friday." 

Did she not realize I was being aspirational? I didn't really mean Friday. 

However, Kate was serious. On Friday, she's laying down that ladder. For me.