Water therapy

I've got a little time off work this week, so i plan to spend an hour of each day in my beloved pools -- the lap pool and/or the therapy pool.
In my raving about my water time, I need to remind myself that the water may be my "happy place," but it isn't necessarily for other people.
Yesterday I got an email from a Dubuque reader of my faith-and-values column in the Telegraph Herald, who asked about my work in the water. She recently had hip surgery, and said she would like to walk without pain, and enjoy her body as much as I said I enjoyed mine. This is what I told her about water therapy:

• It's not swimming, although the aquatic center that is my home-away-from-home has a lap pool as well as a therapy pool. The therapy pool, about 2.5 to 5 feet deep with 94-degree water, is not meant for swimming, but for standing, walking, balancing and gentle exercising.
• It's not a Jacuzzi, either. Some of my friends have joshed me about lolling around in the water with a margarita in one hand. That's wrong because (A) a margarita glass would not be allowed in the pool area, (B) margaritas have way too many calories and too much salt, and (C) the water in the pool doesn't really whirl, though it does move as the filtering system operates -- but most of the movement in the warm water comes from those of us who are moving our bodies and limbs to heal them.
• I started warm-water work with the lovely Dan S., who tailored the movements that he directed (from the deck -- he didn't get in the water with me) to my specific condition. And if something hurt or didn't work, he'd try something else. I did six sessions, two per week for three weeks, under Dan's guidance. I still do the exercises he taught me, in addition to my lap-swimming.
• At the warm-water pool that I use, patients have access to equipment, like buoyant barbells, buoyant rings that go around the foot to provide resistance, pool noodles, boxes to use for simulating step climbing, etc. There also are various types of flippers available, but I used flippers so often in the lap pool,  I bought a pair of my own.
• I started using the lap pool with Dan's blessing, but with guidance from Katie, who oversees the aquatic center. She was the one that suggested flippers. Some days I swim laps. Some days I use the warm-water pool. Some days I do half-and-half.
• It's not for everybody. One of my friends in Portage tried it, and his vertigo was so bad, his fear of drowning canceled out any benefits of warm-water work. And there are people who don't like the water as much as I do, or who are afraid of it. For some of them, even assurances that water therapy is not swimming, and your feet can touch bottom the whole time, aren't adequate.

One thing I've learned recently: Not every community has a therapy pool, or a water therapy program, like the one that has been so wonderful for me. In fact, the clinic where my pool is located is only a few years old; before that, the UW Health system had, I believe, just one other therapy pool in Madison.
And although water aerobics, or water exercises geared toward specific needs like arthritis care, are really great, they're not the same as warm-water therapy. I needed Dan's one-on-one guidance in the beginning. I use him as a resource today. And while we didn't succeed in preventing my knee replacement surgery, the work we did sure got me ready for it, and helped me recover from it.