Theracane

A few years ago, my husband came home telling me about a self-massage tool that he prescribes for his patients: the Theracane.

Theracane. Available at amazon.com

He prescribes it for trigger point therapy for headaches with any sort of tension component, but given the $30 price point, he thought the thing was awesome, but not worth the price. I looked into it, and saw that the self-massage possibilities were endless!

A snippet from the owner's manual

So, I bought B a Theracane for Christmas. Except I couldn't keep it secret until Christmas, so he received his Theracane in November. Both of us enjoyed using it so much- and knowing that my parents also enjoy self-massage (my mom is constantly telling me to lie on top of and roll on tennis balls for my back because she does it and it feels "so good!"), we decided to buy my parents a Theracane also for Christmas that year.

Now, I don't know if it's a cultural thing, but sometimes I feel like my parents don't "get" presents. After we gave them the Theracane, they offered it back to us, saying that if we wanted two Theracanes at home, they'd be willing to let us keep the one that we had bought for them. Confused, but wanting them to enjoy the Theracane as much as we had, we refused.

My husband and I still occasionally use our Theracane- especially when we get wicked knots in our shoulders or necks from all the computer work we have to do as physicians. (Honestly, a greater proportion of time spent in front of computers than with patients- while they're awake anyways, but that's not really what this blog is about...) But I had forgotten about the Theracane we had bought for my parents until B went on his early morning walk around my parent's house and spotted this:

Theracane... holding back some old fencing???

B was so angry- we bought them a $30 gift, and it's in the yard holding some old rusty fencing in place?! He went to my mom and told her that we had given her the Theracane as a gift, and if she wasn't using it, he would take it back and use it in his clinic to show patients how it's used.

Expecting some sort of remorse or apology (or embarrassment???) for blatantly misusing a gift, my husband was surprised (or maybe- not surprised?) when my mom replied without any sort of remorse or guilt: "Oh sure, of course. I'll clean it off for you."