Crash course

My eyes must be getting bigger because everywhere I go now I find something interesting. Today I went to my first therapy lesson and walked in to talk to the fat and grumpy receptionist who coldly led me through the paperwork. Then my name was called by a petite asian lady with a clipboard who took me to the back room to start looking at my wrist. After a series of exercises, diagrams and explanations, she finally left me for a few minutes with a hot pad resting on my scar. As the warmth spread I began to finally look beyond the immediate problem of my unresponsive thumb and inwardly chuckled at the stalky man sitting at the table infront of me. Besides grumbling about being able to return to work at Safeway in the dairy department he didn't say much else and only sat hunched over typing away on his iphone (with his left hand) as the therapist worked on his fractured arm with an ultrasound. To my right an old Chilean lady and a therapist tried desperately to understand each other with hand gestures to no avail. After hesitating for a few minutes my frustration finally won over and I butted in to offer translation. The old woman had fallen and broken her middle finger which was now swollen to twice the normal size. After communicating through me that there was no longer any pain, she proudly held her hand up in a fist and smiled. The therapist nodded back, progress. No translation needed.