Standing Above the Crowd Chapter Summaries and Excerps - Chapter 13: - What Sparked The Donaldson Clinic

Anyone who has gone through physical therapy knows that the time in rehabilitation seems to pass super slowly. First, there’s almost always the traumatic situation that got you into physical therapy in the first place (automobile accident, falling down a flight of stairs, throwing your back out, etc.), and the pain associated with it. Sure, there’s pain from the injury and/or surgery, but there’s also the pain the physical therapist is likely to cause (not purposefully, though…I don’t think) in the process of getting the injured area to respond to treatment and exercise. I call physical therapy almost inevitable today since people are living longer and are more active than ever. Now, along with death and taxes, there is physical therapy. Even if you skate along scot-free throughout life, if you live long enough, you will wear out your joints and most likely have them replaced, and then, you’ll have to undergo physical therapy.

As I went through weeks and months of physical rehabilitation, I realized I had gone from being one of the strongest, roughest, and toughest NBA players to a patient flat on his back. Simple movements, such as leg raises with a three-pound weight on my leg, challenged me. I was fortunate to have a great team of therapists, athletic trainers, and doctors working with me throughout my physical rehab. They encouraged me to get back to full strength and function again. My injury was not common and few of the professional athletes with that injury had ended their careers or had their ability to perform be hampered, but I still took to my physical therapy like a duck to water because I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. I pushed myself as hard as I could to return to my full performance level as quickly as possible.

During my physical therapy and rehab, I had what you would call a “light-bulb moment” where I thought, “If I can’t ever return to playing basketball again, what in the world am I going to do?” That is when I had the inspiration to start up my own physical therapy clinic. I knew at that moment that if I never returned to basketball, the next chapter in my career would be either as a physical therapist or as the owner/operator of a physical therapy clinic. I wanted to establish a wonderful physical therapy clinic that would provide a positive, uplifting environment for patients who were going through an ordeal similar to what I had gone through.

The Donaldson Clinic began shortly after I finished my physical therapy rehab in 1989.

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