Keith (Hathaway House #11) - Dale Mayer Page 0,18

done with it all. He didn’t care, had already given up, and that was a problem because he could see that Shane wanted him to care; Shane wanted Keith invested in his future. But it was hard to see a future when it didn’t appear to be anything different than his present. And certainly he had nothing to celebrate here.

“Okay,” Shane said. “First, I want you out of the wheelchair and on the mat, lying down on your back.”

With a sideways look, Keith said, “I thought we were walking.”

“We’ll get there,” Shane said, “but let’s sort out your basic structure first.”

“Whatever you say.” Keith followed instructions. It was pretty interesting because Shane came at it from a way that was unexpected—nothing anybody had ever done before. It was certainly educational because, by the time Keith was listening and following through on the instructions, he could see what Shane was pointing out.

“When you are lying down, it’s a whole different thing than the way you would be standing,” Shane explained. “Straighten out your legs, and pull your legs together,” Shane said. Then he took several photos, muttering to himself as he wrote down notes.

“Are you telling me that, even laying down, it’s not even normal?” Keith joked.

“Nope, not really,” he said. “That’s why we’re starting this on the floor. And then we’ll get you standing upright. We’ll have you walk, and we’ll have you stand against a wall, while I take more measurements and more pictures.”

At that, Keith relaxed because Shane really wouldn’t put him to work today. But minutes later, Keith was eating his words because just doing what Shane was asking him to do was hard. But Shane didn’t appear to be too bothered.

“I know I asked you to stand on one leg, and you’re not used to it, but you can do it,” he said. “So do it for me. Lean against that wall upright, heels to the back, and lift your left leg. Just balance.”

But of course he couldn’t keep balancing.

Finally Shane gave him a crutch and said, “Use this to help hold yourself up.” And, with that, they went over it again and then again.

“What is it you’re hoping to sort out?” Keith asked, gasping when he finally brought his leg back down again, feeling his back being pulled.

“Muscles that are avoiding working,” he said. “You need your structural integrity solid. Otherwise, over time, you start to lean and to list to one side, and some muscles go weak, while others take on too much of the strain. As you age, these injuries become a bigger problem. We want to make sure that you start off healing correctly and get you solid with the best alignment you can have. Then we’ll build up from there, so that—in twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years—you’re not a basket case and back in a wheelchair.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun at all,” he muttered. But, when Shane asked him to bend over and touch his toes, Keith just looked at him in shock.

“Go down as low as you can get and stretch as far as you can,” Shane said.

But he could barely even get his hands to his knees.

Once again Shane was there, poking at the muscles in his back, taking photos and measurements. By the time they were done with the session, Keith was panting and wishing that he was already sitting down in his wheelchair.

Finally Shane let him sit down. “I don’t know what any of that tells you,” Keith said, “but we’ve done nothing except test yet again, and I’m exhausted.”

“That’s because I asked you to put some of the muscles under a spotlight,” Shane said quietly, as he finished marking notes down on his tablet. “This is a big help,” he said. “It gives me a really good idea where we need to start.” At that, he motioned at the door and said, “We’ve been at it for an hour and a half, so I’ll let you head back to your room. You’ve got some doctor appointments this afternoon, and I’ll go set up your PT program. We’ll start first thing in the morning at nine o’clock, so be ready.”

“Where do I meet you?” Keith asked.

“Right here,” he said. “We’ll start on the floor again, but it will be a very different scenario tomorrow.” And, with that dire warning, Shane was gone.

Back in his wheelchair, after crawling all the way across the floor and pulling himself into the chair, he was miffed that Shane had left him