DOUBLING DOWN [T, 6-10-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Singling Down of An Old Man—DOUBLING DOWN [T, 6-10-25]

 

I walked this morning. It was a pleasant day. Pretty clouds. Fully green trees. Fragrant flowers. Friendly dogs. I walked with no pain. Made me really mad.

I haven’t been able to walk the pleasant streets of our neighborhood for three months, because of the pain in my hip. Joint pains and problems are de rigueur for old people, yes, but this was unfair. I did nothing to cause the pain—no falls or slips. It just started on its own.

So, I made my peace with not getting to walk the green streets of my neighborhood anymore. I had done so for ten years. Surely that was enough for one of my age.

I went to the NP [Nurse Practitioner], of course, for the pain. I assumed she would give me a pill or an injection. Instead, she ordered me to the physical therapist. I was sure that would not work, even though my wife and daughters all assured me that their physical therapy had been beneficial. But they had been young women at the times when fit and youthful people pulled at their limbs. I was now an old man of elderly abilities and curmudgeonly virtues.

Moreover, I’d had PT previously, after rotator cuff surgery. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. Pretty little blonds with bouncy ponytails and cutesy names, like Polly and Penny, would take my arm down the hall to work on it while leaving me writhing on the torture table.

 

I dragged myself, on a cane, to PT. This time, there were no cute blonds, only competent-looking men, Chris, the manager of the torture chamber, and Nicolas, my personal PTist. I was grateful. They were not nearly as painful as Penny and Polly. But they didn’t help. Ha! I was right. This wasn’t working. 

People love being right, even when we’re wrong.

Until about the 4^th session. As usual, I had hobbled into their lair on a cane. But as I left, I didn’t need the cane. No pain all the way to the car. Well, that wasn’t very far, but it was a warning: this is going to work, and you’ll have to admit that the NP was right and you were wrong.

We hate being wrong, especially if we really are wrong.

 

Politicians hate it so much that “doubling down” is the current buzz word. You never admit that you are wrong, about anything. If you claim that 2 + 2 is 5, and some pointy-headed mathematician with a PhD says you are wrong, you double down: You claim that the mathematician must be a pedophile, or a Canadian. You claim that you are using new and alternative and better math. You claim that you never said any such thing, even though everyone on earth has seen the videotape of you saying it. You claim that 2 + 2 = 5 would be right if others hadn’t made this into an unchristian nation.

Well, I’m above that sort of thing. I’m not going to claim that the NP was wrong, and that I was right about the PT being the wrong therapy for my hip pain, that all I needed was a shot or a pill.

I will, however, have to get a new NP.

John Robert McFarland