Morning Rehab

Since I started rehab I've been on a waiting list to get into the 6:30AM class, which is apparently wildly popular. I wanted to get into the early morning session so I could still to go rehab if I found a job. I haven't found a job yet, but there are a few leads developing, and I was worried that I might have to abandon rehab.

Let me say, right here, that I don't enjoy physical work. I'm not turning into Jim Fixx or one of those people who experiences a flood of endorphins when I exercise. But I feel better after I exercise, mentally and physically, and... hey, wait a second, maybe I am one of those people! The point is that I enjoy the structured rehab - it gives me motivation to go and it reassures me that medical professionals are watching my EKG and will intervene in the unlikely event that something goes haywire (when I walk in the desert, the only things liable to intervene if something goes haywire are vultures).

So I finally got into the 6:30 session, and it's harder. My body isn't used to working at that ridiculous hour and I experience a definite and large amount of suffering before my body "breaks over" and starts to work better. What's most odd is that the level of physical work that would drive my heart rate to 130 at noon will only drive it to 110 at six AM. The rehab guys think it's because it's closer to when I took my medications and they're all concentrated and hard-hitting. I think my heart is just sleepy, along with the rest of me.

But what's most interesting is the demographics. If I had to guess beforehand, I'd have said that the early-morning rehab session would be populated by the fifty-something guys who still have to work, and the noon sessions would be populated by the retired guys who could go at any time. But it's actually completely backwards. The noon session was mostly working guys, while the morning session is completely populated by retired country club golf Episcopalians. The difference is very marked.

The noon crowd tended to do a lot of that hail-fellow-well-met business, not quite backslapping but close, and they'd always trot out the same jokes about challenging one another to exercise bike races. Cell phones were always going off, and most of the guys tried to engage Jessica (one of the Rehab Persons) in hearty repartee.

The morning crowd is very different. There's no joking and no clowning around. There's hardly any talking at all. They aren't rude, really, or even unfriendly; it's more a matter of refinement, as though they believe that gentlemen shouldn't open their mouths before the sun is over the yardarm. Or perhaps they prefer to conserve their strength for the golf games that inevitably follow, where they can invoke the spirit of Goldwater to aid them in avoiding double-bogeys and liberals.