When I was a physical therapist in the U.S. Army, one morning a patient came in on sick call. I asked how I could help him. He told me, “I have a turtle in my neck.”

I smiled, but humored him. “Oh. really, I said. “How did you find it?”

He explained that his neck was stiff and painful, and he couldn’t turn his head to the right.

It worsened, and his drill sargent had taken him to the Emergency Department the previous night. He was X-rayed and told to report to sick call the next day and see the physical therapist because he had “acute torticollis.”

Not exactly a turtle or a tortoise.

- Leanne Lyon Burns, PT