Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Physio 101...


So today was my first day of physio. Being somewhat of a retard, I pushed myself and am now feeling the consequences. Ooowwww... The exercises themselves were not overly strenuous, but I suppose I just had to push the envelope on my first time out, that's all. My therapist Clint, advised me to: "stay within the 4 to 5 out of a possible 10 pain factor range", while doing my exercises. He didn't want to put me out of commission. I still have exercises to do at home between my visits to the centre and my next appointment is for this coming Thursday. The majority of my first appointment today was taken up with evaluation as we played 20 questions.

My therapist is a young fella, who also happens to be a fellow motorcycle enthusiast. His folks also ride. We had a bit to talk about this morning. Part of his evaluation concerned my neck and shoulder muscles on the afflicted side, which at the present are tighter than a longbow's string. He foresees using some heat and maybe some electrotherapy on them, to aid in loosening them up for me. That in itself would be nothing short of a Godsend. With my left arm straight, I can raise it with the pulley to a point above my shoulder. Plenty high enough for riding. Needless to say, I want to get it much higher still. Now I have to work on a couple of more things… Like being able to spread my left arm out towards the side. As I discovered today, the muscles responsible for that range of movement are currently not available. Besides being displaced during the operation procedure, they have also atrophied over the last 2 months, to the point of being non-existent. Clearly this is going to take a little while before I'm back in shape to ride safely.


I found out at the end of my first session that he wanted to apply some heat and perhaps massage to my shoulder area. Unfortunately, I was running late and had to return home yet, before my lady could drive me into work. So no niceties for me on this, my first visit. As it was, I actually logged into work late by a minute and a few seconds. Next time I will take full advantage of such amenities, believe me. I'll make time for it!!!

So I'm sore but at least I'm hopeful. I have begun yet another chapter in this my recovery. I am confident that I will be able to recover sufficiently to not only ride again, but to do just about everything I could before. I believe Dr. Pollock's prognosis about my arm never being the same again. You can't argue with that fact. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that I will be really limited in what I can and cannot do. That is something that I believe depends solely on me and my motivation factor to get better.


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