stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2022-11-23 09:48 am
stevenpiziks) wrote2022-11-23 09:48 am
Entry tags:
Shoulder Surgery 25 (Pause to PT)
So now I don't do physical therapy. For the moment.
This is a good thing. I don't have to drive to Ann Arbor twice a week and go through an hour of lifts and stretches. I don't have to add half an hour of exercises to my daily run. I get home from work, I do a run, and I'm done for the day, and it's not even 4:30.
I should be happy about this, but really, my feelings are mixed. I know my shoulder and arm aren't up to full strength, and I worry that pausing or stopping PT will mean I won't get that strength back. I definitely feel the strain--and pain--when I lift anything more than three or four pounds the wrong way. (When I mentioned this to the doctor, he said, "Then don't lift that way," which is decent medical advice, but thing is, I would like full strength back, thanks. I shouldn't have to spend the rest of my life with a weak right arm.)
On the other hand, a major burden has lifted. I'm no longer spending five and six hours a week, plus travel time, in physical therapy I hated.
Why is it not completely a thrill? I've been doing this for sixteen months. For a year and a half, my life has been bolt out of work and run to PT, then arrive home, tired and sweating and in pain, and by the time I showered and dressed, it was after 5:00--time to make supper. So my days started at 6:00 AM and I ran non-stop until 6:00 PM. For sixteen months. This made me feel ... helpless. Like I had no control over my schedule or my life. Wrenched daily from one even to the next, doing shit that felt scary or even degrading. ("Here, lift this one-pound weight. That's all someone in your shape can handle. Then I'm going to hurt you a bunch, but that part of the recovery process, so put up with it, you weak little shit.")
After a while, it becomes your life. When it's lifted, you don't know how to let go. I get mad when I think about all the hours I put in (six hours a week times 78 weeks = 468 hours, which is more than ten 40-hour work weeks, or 20 days of 24 hours). How much could I have written in that time? How much could have I read? How much harp could I have played? How much could I have just rested when I needed to? Because the pain is still there, it feels like I completed 468 hours of PT for nothing. Wasted time. Lost time. And I still do an hour a week of talk therapy. Been doing that for a year, so add another 50 hours or so. And the amount of time I've spent on the phone and the amount of time I've spent at the doctor's office and it all adds up to so much time taken away from me.
It's hard to let go anger and frustration you've gotten on a daily basis for sixteen months, even when a chunk of the anger/frustration's source is over. Or at least, on hiatus.
I'm working on that. Being upset doesn't make life better for me. The only thing it does is ensure that I don't give up and I don't let the medical people give up. But it's not something that happens overnight.
This is a good thing. I don't have to drive to Ann Arbor twice a week and go through an hour of lifts and stretches. I don't have to add half an hour of exercises to my daily run. I get home from work, I do a run, and I'm done for the day, and it's not even 4:30.
I should be happy about this, but really, my feelings are mixed. I know my shoulder and arm aren't up to full strength, and I worry that pausing or stopping PT will mean I won't get that strength back. I definitely feel the strain--and pain--when I lift anything more than three or four pounds the wrong way. (When I mentioned this to the doctor, he said, "Then don't lift that way," which is decent medical advice, but thing is, I would like full strength back, thanks. I shouldn't have to spend the rest of my life with a weak right arm.)
On the other hand, a major burden has lifted. I'm no longer spending five and six hours a week, plus travel time, in physical therapy I hated.
Why is it not completely a thrill? I've been doing this for sixteen months. For a year and a half, my life has been bolt out of work and run to PT, then arrive home, tired and sweating and in pain, and by the time I showered and dressed, it was after 5:00--time to make supper. So my days started at 6:00 AM and I ran non-stop until 6:00 PM. For sixteen months. This made me feel ... helpless. Like I had no control over my schedule or my life. Wrenched daily from one even to the next, doing shit that felt scary or even degrading. ("Here, lift this one-pound weight. That's all someone in your shape can handle. Then I'm going to hurt you a bunch, but that part of the recovery process, so put up with it, you weak little shit.")
After a while, it becomes your life. When it's lifted, you don't know how to let go. I get mad when I think about all the hours I put in (six hours a week times 78 weeks = 468 hours, which is more than ten 40-hour work weeks, or 20 days of 24 hours). How much could I have written in that time? How much could have I read? How much harp could I have played? How much could I have just rested when I needed to? Because the pain is still there, it feels like I completed 468 hours of PT for nothing. Wasted time. Lost time. And I still do an hour a week of talk therapy. Been doing that for a year, so add another 50 hours or so. And the amount of time I've spent on the phone and the amount of time I've spent at the doctor's office and it all adds up to so much time taken away from me.
It's hard to let go anger and frustration you've gotten on a daily basis for sixteen months, even when a chunk of the anger/frustration's source is over. Or at least, on hiatus.
I'm working on that. Being upset doesn't make life better for me. The only thing it does is ensure that I don't give up and I don't let the medical people give up. But it's not something that happens overnight.