Undressed

What I Did

This morning, I went to my physiotherapy session. I fell down the stairs a few months ago and broke my fall by hanging onto a railing as I fell backwards down two flights. And yes, I was sober! I pulled my shoulder out and I have torn the tendons in my rotator cuff. It's not life threatening, just very uncomfortable. I thought nothing of it until the designers in my office kept calling me 'chicken wing', as I would adjust my shoulder without thinking, by tucking my hand under my armpit and doing a bent arm back crawl several times until my shoulder went back into the right place. Very amusing apparently. So as it kept locking up, I thought it better be looked at.

First I was sent for an MRI to see what damage there was. The MRI unit was run by a freelance hospital department and was set up in the basement of a disused hospital on the same floor as the morgue! It was also a Sunday and the place was totally deserted. A nurse appeared and said the place totally freaked her out. Good to reassure the patients, I thought! It wasn't until I was trapped in the tiny MRI tube that I suddenly realised.. Oh my God, if something happens to the nurse, no one will know I'm here. Also, you lose all track of time... I knew I would only be in there about 20 minutes but you can't tell if you've been in there 5 or 45 minutes. Just when I was about to press the panic button, thinking all the dead bodies from the morgue were converging on my room, the nurse pulled me out. Hideous!

So I am now booked in for 8 sessions of physio with a lovely tiny indian girl. The first session she wrote down a lot and gave me a few exercises with giant elastic bands but this morning she wanted to do more pressure and massage. She asked me to take off a layer and she would be back in a moment.

Now, I am used to going to my osteopath for treatment, a crazy Dane called Torben, who demands you strip off to your bra and knickers. He also works in a room that has one way mirrored glass... on the ground floor! It takes a lot of getting used to I can assure you... standing there in your undies with the whole world walking past. Of course, what's really off-putting is when people look in through the window and you seemingly make eye contact. They are actually looking at themselves, not you at all, readjusting their hair or something! Torben, of course, finds the whole thing hilarious. I decided to get my own back a year or so ago when I happened to be working near his office. I walked towards his mirrored window, stopped and waved frantically in front of it, mouthing "Hi Torben". Ha, ha, that poor person in his room must have had a fit!

Anyway, so this morning, used to states of undress, I just took off everything apart from my bra and pants and waited for her to come back. She opened the door, looked at me in horror and ran to the window. What I had forgotten was that I wasn't at Torbens', the window wasn't one way mirror and that I was standing, nearly naked in a ground floor room, with no curtains, by a main road with a queue of people waiting at the bus stop! I ducked down mortified. She looked at me and said "I only meant your cardigan!"