Well, this shoulder therapy gig is the pits. I keep waiting to “turn the corner” and climb the ideal healing ramp with its ever increasing slope — you know, where the healing process speeds up faster and faster.
But it hasn’t worked out that way. Instead of rising up an ever-increasing slope, the progress has been more like a linear road – like riding the flatlands of western Kansas. Yeah, as you head west you are gaining altitude, on average, but you’d never know it!
Though I do exercises on my shoulder every day, and go to therapy three times a week, my progress can be measured in tiny increments. Maybe I can stretch a millimeter further every day. Maybe.
One of the exercises they have me do is rotating a big exercise ball (the kind you are supposed to sit and roll around on) with my arm. I’ve been doing this exercise since the first part of September, and only now can I do it without any pain. I guess that’s progress. I guess I should count that blessing.
These days, my “favorite exercise” is hanging from a bar on the lat strength machine. I don’t actually pull down the bar, I just hang from it, stretching my arms. I put “favorite exercise” in quotes because it hurts like the dickens, but it’s proving to be the one exercise that seems to be yielding the most benefits. When I first started doing it, about two weeks ago, it felt like I was being crucified. Now, it’s not so bad, at least until about the fifth rep of 20 seconds. It’s a big ouch after that.
In other more positive news: I can do the table-top yoga pose now, including cat-cows. Yeah, I know, it’s not much, but at least it’s not impossible any more. And I can do the beginnings of child’s pose, and I do a modified version of downward facing dog, except instead of starting out in the horizontal plank position, I start out vertically and lean over a counter top and stretch my arms out. I call these stretches “counter dogs.” Yeah, that’s right, I’m coining that term, right here and now. Ha!
Anyway, I’m resigned to this long haul. And it might get longer. My surgeon is talking a possible ‘nuther surgery. I’m keeping my shoulders crossed (yeah, a joke) that this won’t happen. I can’t imagine going through another surgery recovery.
Today I saw the Bullshifter’s Thursday morning group ride by as I was out walking the dog. They are gearing up for many long distance rides coming up, including a 300K later this month. I could only look on wistfully as they whizzed past. But not to worry. I’m okay with it.