Wax on, wax off.
First of all the therapy took place in a gym on Valencia Street in San Francisco called Mission Fitness. For those of you not familiar with Valencia Street in San Francisco, once upon a time tough men would not walk down the street in fear of the even tougher women who frequented the local bars. But that was long ago and far away in a time known as college. Today it is Ground Zero, the capital of Hipsterville. Got a trend? It's a pretty safe bet it started around here. Gourmet toast. I'm not kidding you can look it up. It's also where old time residents and tech nerd newcomers duke it out over rising rental prices, gourmet restaurants replacing coffee shops, and high end clothing stores replacing the local shoe repair.
Mission Fitness (named so because the entire area is called the Mission, not because it's a play on words name) falls squarely in the old resident column. It's an old style place, crammed full of equipment that hasn't been updated in years. Don't call it "retro", there has to be a small amount of nostalgia for something to be that. No, Mission Fitness isn't "retro". It's a dump. The smell of sweat and lineament wafts through the place, encouraged on by the giant fans blowing constantly. The carpet is torn and stained, the desk is two filing cabinets with a plank across them, and I can't be certain but I'm pretty sure the hot water in the showers is at best tepid. No fancy individual TVs or juice bars or a girl walking around refilling your water bottle here. This is a place to work out, to sweat and groan under the weight of heavy objects or the exertion from climbing a never ending staircase. It's population is longtime locals unconcerned about looking good in the mirrors combined with those like me looking for physical therapy. Paris Hilton would be appalled to be seen in here.
I fell in love with it right away.
In a side room off the main floor resides Orthopedic Physical Therapy. I was ushered in by an assistant therapist who took my info and did all the basic work up. Then in came John Soriano PT. I am not exaggerating when I say he looks exactly like Pat Morita's Mr. Miyagi from THE KARATE KID, right down to the small pony tail and the Fu Manchu beard. Even the accent is the same which is strange since it's obvious he's Philippino and not Japanese. I'm talking the real one, not that crappy remake.
He studies my foot for a moment, then asks if he can smell the wound. He assures me this is not out of some fetishistic desire, but to determine if there is an infection. I place my foot on a chair and he bends down, breathing deeply of what I can imagine is nothing that smells anything like pleasant. His verdict is that there is a small infection, not too bad, but the wound should breath more and makes me promise to not wrap it in all the gauze that it's been wrapped and re-wrapped in for the past several weeks. Just use a large band-aid over the gauze inside the wound. Well he didn't have to tell me twice, I've fought the Battle of the Gauze far too long.
From his expressions and body language I was sure the next step was going to be him running out to the local herbalist to concoct some lethal smelling plaster for my foot to live in, but instead he outlines a course of exercises and massage therapies they I will do over the next several weeks. Then he hands me back to his assistant Josh and off he goes.
Josh puts me through some pretty basic exercises and stretches informing me that oh yeah tomorrow you're not going to be loving life. At least for the moment I'm doing okay. And next week I go back again.
Maybe this time I'll try the gourmet toast.
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