Oh! Ah! Yes! These are just some of the sounds of verbal exclamations that you can hear coming from my back yard any given night as I descend into a little piece of heaven.

Outside sitting under my outdoor patio is my best friend, my spa. She is a lovely teal color with beautiful redwood paneling. I look upon her with keep admiration. Before we met, I was a sight to behold. I had injured my foot about seven years ago at a health club while exercising. I had torn all the ligaments in my right foot and leg, and had developed a heel spur. I had foot surgery, which did not go well. I was in extreme pain all the time. For seven years, I lived in constant pain. I had physical therapy treatments, prescription drugs for the pain, and at one point I walked with a cane. Over the course of seven years, it was determined that I had lost about 13% of mobility on my right side. My future looked bleak. I was bracing myself for the worst. I felt I would someday end up in a wheel chair. I was only 46 years old. I was very limited as to any exercise that I could endure. I was a very active woman my whole life. I was the mother of a seven year old at the time of my injury. He kept me very busy. We would go for long bicycle rides. I swam, skied, walked, and weight trained. All of those activities abruptly ended. I no longer was the young active person I once was. It was a hard adjustment to make. I became despondent and afraid of my future. However, life had to go on. I still needed to carpool my son to school everyday, bring him to soccer, baseball, and piano lessons. My home still needed to be maintained such as the raking of leaves in the fall, the mowing of the grass in the summer, all of which was endured with painkillers. Grocery shopping was the worst task to tolerate. After two hours inside a grocery store, fumbling through coupons and parading up and down the aisles, then standing in the line to checkout, by the time I got all the groceries in the car and sat down to start the van, I was in tears.

I went to one doctor after another searching for some relief. They would just order me another prescription, or I would receive another injection of cortisone. The only solace that would help is when I would sit in my bathtub at the end of the day and soak my foot and leg. I knew I had to look into a spa for medicinal reasons.

My husband and I went to ThermoSpas, in Wallingford CT. We chose the Phoenix model. It sits five people comfortably. The best thing about this spa is the therapy valve. The jet on the bottom shoots out pulsating water and massages my foot and leg to alleviate the pain I am in. It has improved the strength on my right side after just nine months. I am completely off my pain medication. When I hurt now, I just go in the spa.

The spa is ideal for stress. I recently returned to college for a career change. I would have never gotten through algebra 1 if I hadn’t had my spa to climb into every night.

My spa, my best friend, has given me a new lease on life. She has restored my energy, given me hope a new way to live with pain. Although, I will never truly free from pain from my injury, having my ThermoSpa has allowed me to live and cope with my fate. I feel more optimistic about my future. Having my spa has improved the quality of my life. Although the spa was a sizeable investment, I have gotten my money back ten-fold.

On a starry-lit night when I am alone sitting in my spa listening to the bubbling and gurgling of the therapeutic waters circling around my worn torn body, I am smiling. With a sigh, I am thinking how truly blessed I am to have this wonderful comrade.

Sincerely,

Karen Celetano.