It is official: I am entering my first swim meet since January 2007. The entry is in the mail. I cannot bring it back.
Granted: I do not expect any "best times."
Granted: I am not even swimming many of what used to be my "best events."
Granted: I will be satisfied with simply finishing the races for which I have signed up and completing the required warm-ups and cool-downs.
Granted: I am trying to do this just for fun, but I am also nervous as hell.
Still: ain't it great?
Showing posts with label shoulder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shoulder. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
Monday, December 08, 2008
Please believe me that I am falling apart.
I was looking back through posts from last winter, and I see that I was bothered then by many of the same things that are bothering me now—a bigger body than I’d like, a body that won’t cooperate with my desire and need to exercise, a body trying hard to recover from injury, a body that has asked me to slow the hell down so that it might try to heal. I see that my New Year's Resolutions from this past January even set more limited goals, exercise-wise, since I didn't want to go crazy with the expectations.
Last year I expected this, since I had just had surgery. I really thought that by this year I might not be feeling this way. I know that those kinds of thoughts do me in, those kinds of expectations, but they sneak their way in there before I realize it, and then I have to extricate them.
I am not complaining about my shoulder. In fact, I am trying hard not to complain. It is just that the left side of my body seems to be part of an organized revolution of some kind. Things started with that shoulder, of course. Then randomly one day, I had a blind spot in the center of my left field of vision—kind of like I had looked at a bright light, but it has never gone away. Then this summer while I was in London, my left hamstring got really tight, and no amount of stretching would help. (Mind you, this cannot be a sports injury, because all I was doing at that time was sitting in the British Library for hours on end, and walking to and from the British Library. Well, and Bollywood dancing, but I digress.) That hamstring pain came and went during the fall, but got worse in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, to the point where it even hurt to kick while I swam.
My coach, knowing how the pain started, suggested that I try a chiropractic adjustment. I went to see the chiropractor last week, and he asked, “Has your left shoulder always been lower than your right?” I said no, and told him the whole Shoulder Surgery Massacree, with four-part harmony, and he said, “Bless your heart,” southern U.S. code for “Your life sucks but I’d hate to say so.” He also suggested that until I see how these adjustments affect my spine, that I not do any strength training, though swimming would be fine.
Anyway, he has done some splendid crackly adjustments on my back, neck, and hips, trying to get things straightened out. But then on Wednesday of last week I went to the pool after seeing him, and as I was kicking—but not even particularly hard—I felt some kind of irksome but not particularly traumatic snap in my—you guessed it—left knee, which then got more and more painful. So after a ridiculously short swim, I got out, took a shower and went home, befuddled, and did a lot of icing.
I mean, exactly what kind of exercise can I do? Nothing that overtaxes my shoulder. Nothing that makes my hamstring or knee hurt. Nothing that might affect my spine.
That leaves . . . knitting.
Which I have been doing a lot of.
But it ain’t swimming. Or walking. Or rowing. Or cycling. Or lifting weights.
Have you tired yet of my now seemingly endless tales of exercise woes?
On Friday the PP noted that his mother and sister are getting themselves a Wii fit for Christmas, and he suggested we consider getting one. I told him maybe, but first let me put in a plea to Magpie, who is giving one away.
Will it change my life? I don’t know. I love games, and maybe having some little active games that we can play in the cold weather that still get the blood pumping would be fun. (Probably can’t knit while playing, though, without risking bodily harm to myself or the PP.) But hey—at this point I am willing to try anything!
Last year I expected this, since I had just had surgery. I really thought that by this year I might not be feeling this way. I know that those kinds of thoughts do me in, those kinds of expectations, but they sneak their way in there before I realize it, and then I have to extricate them.
I am not complaining about my shoulder. In fact, I am trying hard not to complain. It is just that the left side of my body seems to be part of an organized revolution of some kind. Things started with that shoulder, of course. Then randomly one day, I had a blind spot in the center of my left field of vision—kind of like I had looked at a bright light, but it has never gone away. Then this summer while I was in London, my left hamstring got really tight, and no amount of stretching would help. (Mind you, this cannot be a sports injury, because all I was doing at that time was sitting in the British Library for hours on end, and walking to and from the British Library. Well, and Bollywood dancing, but I digress.) That hamstring pain came and went during the fall, but got worse in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, to the point where it even hurt to kick while I swam.
My coach, knowing how the pain started, suggested that I try a chiropractic adjustment. I went to see the chiropractor last week, and he asked, “Has your left shoulder always been lower than your right?” I said no, and told him the whole Shoulder Surgery Massacree, with four-part harmony, and he said, “Bless your heart,” southern U.S. code for “Your life sucks but I’d hate to say so.” He also suggested that until I see how these adjustments affect my spine, that I not do any strength training, though swimming would be fine.
Anyway, he has done some splendid crackly adjustments on my back, neck, and hips, trying to get things straightened out. But then on Wednesday of last week I went to the pool after seeing him, and as I was kicking—but not even particularly hard—I felt some kind of irksome but not particularly traumatic snap in my—you guessed it—left knee, which then got more and more painful. So after a ridiculously short swim, I got out, took a shower and went home, befuddled, and did a lot of icing.
I mean, exactly what kind of exercise can I do? Nothing that overtaxes my shoulder. Nothing that makes my hamstring or knee hurt. Nothing that might affect my spine.
That leaves . . . knitting.
Which I have been doing a lot of.
But it ain’t swimming. Or walking. Or rowing. Or cycling. Or lifting weights.
Have you tired yet of my now seemingly endless tales of exercise woes?
On Friday the PP noted that his mother and sister are getting themselves a Wii fit for Christmas, and he suggested we consider getting one. I told him maybe, but first let me put in a plea to Magpie, who is giving one away.
Will it change my life? I don’t know. I love games, and maybe having some little active games that we can play in the cold weather that still get the blood pumping would be fun. (Probably can’t knit while playing, though, without risking bodily harm to myself or the PP.) But hey—at this point I am willing to try anything!
Monday, June 02, 2008
You cannot be careful enough.
My regular reader knows that in my work to come back from my surgery back in November, I have been extremely careful. Despite my desire to recover faster, I have been taking things at a snail’s pace, adding swimming at a rate of 10% a week, and backing off at even the smallest sign of discomfort. I have done my exercises regularly. I have kept my coaches in the know. I have taken careful notes.
It has been about 10 days since I went back into physical therapy. I believe that the stretching and new exercises my PT has had me doing have been helping. On Saturday morning, I was able to swim 900 meters in practice without any pinching or soreness or anything. Great!
But then: bad luck. I was swimming backstroke, because that is the stroke that is feeling the best right now. (I know: the irony, since it is, in terms of competition, my weakest stroke and the one where I have had to work the hardest as an adult to gain better skills—still very much a work in progress.) In the next lane, another swimming was also swimming backstroke, and somehow, under the lane line, our pulls matched up so that our left (yes, left—the bad one) elbows interlocked as we passed. Since the joint is weak and a bit unstable, the contact pulled my shoulder up and a bit out of joint. OUCH!
I stopped immediately, and I did a heavy icing and ibuprofen regimen over the weekend. Oh, and wine.
Today I saw my PT again, and he says the shoulder capsule is stretched, kind of like a sprained ankle. So I need to lay off it for a while, and off the exercises, until it can settle down.
What dumb luck: all that caution and then a freak accident. A friend told me that day I should buy a lottery ticket, but I was afraid I would get one of those tickets where I end up owing a million dollars to the state of South Carolina.
It has been about 10 days since I went back into physical therapy. I believe that the stretching and new exercises my PT has had me doing have been helping. On Saturday morning, I was able to swim 900 meters in practice without any pinching or soreness or anything. Great!
But then: bad luck. I was swimming backstroke, because that is the stroke that is feeling the best right now. (I know: the irony, since it is, in terms of competition, my weakest stroke and the one where I have had to work the hardest as an adult to gain better skills—still very much a work in progress.) In the next lane, another swimming was also swimming backstroke, and somehow, under the lane line, our pulls matched up so that our left (yes, left—the bad one) elbows interlocked as we passed. Since the joint is weak and a bit unstable, the contact pulled my shoulder up and a bit out of joint. OUCH!
I stopped immediately, and I did a heavy icing and ibuprofen regimen over the weekend. Oh, and wine.
Today I saw my PT again, and he says the shoulder capsule is stretched, kind of like a sprained ankle. So I need to lay off it for a while, and off the exercises, until it can settle down.
What dumb luck: all that caution and then a freak accident. A friend told me that day I should buy a lottery ticket, but I was afraid I would get one of those tickets where I end up owing a million dollars to the state of South Carolina.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Swimming meditation.
It has been a while since I wrote about swimming. I realized this this morning at practice, which was not going the best. But surprisingly enough, this not-great practice let me make some important strides in approaching things in a more mindful way.
During this not-so-great practice, I remembered that I had meant to write about a couple of recent practices in which I have clocked 3000 long-course meters, of which 1000 of those meters have been swim. (Hooah!) Those have been pretty amazing practices, both because my body has been permitting that much swimming and because 3000 LCM was a new record for one practice since I have returned from Surgery Numero Duo. Let me tell you: I have legs of steel! (Too bad they are encased in sheaths of extra flab....)
Back in the middle of March, I returned to swimming after getting clearance from my surgeon. I started with 450 meters of swimming in a practice, up to three times a week. My shoulder did not initially like swimming 3 times in one week, so for a while I swam twice a week. Then lately I have been able to swim 3 times a week more frequently, and all in all the recovery has been very steady, allowing me to add 10% of swimming distance almost every week, such that this week I am supposed to be able to swim 1100 meters.
Here is a sample of one of those 3000 LCM practices, just for the record (from 6 May):
1200m warm-up: 4 x 300 (=200 k + 100 s), with long fins [400m swim]
1200m IM set: 4 x 300 IM (= 100 FL k / 50 BA s / 100 BR k / 50 FR s) [400m swim]
400m kick/swim set: 4 x 100 (= 50 build k / 25 "madman" k / 25 s [100m swim]
TOTAL: 3000 LCM [900m swim]
I did a similar practice on 14 May, but with 1000 meters of swim.
But for whatever reason, at this past Saturday's practice my shoulder was unhappy, and I cut my swimming portion short. Thus far, things have gone extremely easily, so perhaps this is just a small check. At many points I have had some soreness along my triceps muscle that I believe results from some tightness of muscles elsewhere that I am stretching and stretching to try to loosen--which is working gradually.
Furthermore, my body is still adjusting to the long-course pool. Thanks to the lack of turns, and therefore opportunities to push off the wall, swimming one length in a 50-meter pool requires something like 10-15% more effort than swimming two lengths in a 25-meter pool. As someone who relies heavily on those big jumps off the wall, I take a while to get used to the long pool. (It is a bit of a shame that this adjustment had to come so early in my recovery, but so it goes.)
Today at practice, though, my shoulder felt a bit worse, or else I was being extremely sensitive and noticed it sooner. Given that the soreness is in the front of the shoulder, what I have come to call the "danger zone," I take it very seriously, and play things conservatively, since I would rather let the thing heal, however long it takes. I am concerned, though, that despite my doing regular rotator-cuff exercises, there may be some lingering weakness and instability in the joint, and that I have finally reached the amount of swimming where I can notice it.
So I backed off. Today I swam only 550 meters in a 2400-meter practice.
And while I am trying to remain optimistic, having this happen a second time in a few days does make me a little nervous.
What also made me nervous this morning was sharing a lane with The Human Propeller. I am not joking: this guy, who is rather tall and long-limbed, gets some serious crazy arms-everywhere action going on his freestyle. And on his backstroke, his stroke is wide wide wide.
I do not really mind sharing lane space with people when they are swimming in their normal allotment of the lane, but with this guy I was like, "DUDE. Feel free to take your half of the lane wherever you want it."
So I could feel myself venturing toward having A Bad Practice. Instead of letting that happen, though, I thought I would try a meditative technique. Of late I have been reading a book by John Kabat-Zinn, who writes extensively about mindfulness--living in the present--and how living mindfully can help counterbalance stress, deal with chronic pain, etc. etc. In his book, he talks about different kinds of meditation--walking meditation, eating meditation, sitting meditation, etc.
This morning I thought to myself, why not swimming meditation? Or more technically, kicking meditation? I was doing a set of 150s, which were supposed to go 50 kick + 50 drill or swim + 50 fast kick, but I had modified them to become all kick, alternating FL/BR/FR, and I was doing all of this with a swim snorkel, which made breathing much easier. So during the fly-kick 50, I started focusing on my breathing, and trying to think just about breathing, and then after that got easy, just about the motion of kicking. On the breast-kick 50, I coordinated my breathing with the kick motion, and focused on that. (On the flutter-kick 50, I was trying to kick fast, and that required a little less meditation.)
But the important thing here is that IT WORKED. I got myself back into the present moment of my swimming and out of my fears. Of course, this sort of thing requires rethinking what swim practice is about, which I was prepared to do. The notion of mindfulness as a practice is not something you do to perfect, but rather something that is more a way of life or a part of one's regular doings. In learning about this, I have wondered, What would happen if I thought of swim practice as that kind of practice rather than as rehearsals for meets?
Today I learned that it is easier to have good technique. I realized that during my last 150, I felt stronger and more efficient than during the first one, even though I was tired (and especially so because I had forgotten to eat anything before practice--duh). In particular, I felt that my fly kick was more powerful, as I was getting propulsion from both my down-kick and my up-kick. My breast-stroke kick felt more powerful too. My flutter kick engaged my hips more.
I will continue to practice this, as it were.
During this not-so-great practice, I remembered that I had meant to write about a couple of recent practices in which I have clocked 3000 long-course meters, of which 1000 of those meters have been swim. (Hooah!) Those have been pretty amazing practices, both because my body has been permitting that much swimming and because 3000 LCM was a new record for one practice since I have returned from Surgery Numero Duo. Let me tell you: I have legs of steel! (Too bad they are encased in sheaths of extra flab....)
Back in the middle of March, I returned to swimming after getting clearance from my surgeon. I started with 450 meters of swimming in a practice, up to three times a week. My shoulder did not initially like swimming 3 times in one week, so for a while I swam twice a week. Then lately I have been able to swim 3 times a week more frequently, and all in all the recovery has been very steady, allowing me to add 10% of swimming distance almost every week, such that this week I am supposed to be able to swim 1100 meters.
Here is a sample of one of those 3000 LCM practices, just for the record (from 6 May):
1200m warm-up: 4 x 300 (=200 k + 100 s), with long fins [400m swim]
1200m IM set: 4 x 300 IM (= 100 FL k / 50 BA s / 100 BR k / 50 FR s) [400m swim]
400m kick/swim set: 4 x 100 (= 50 build k / 25 "madman" k / 25 s [100m swim]
TOTAL: 3000 LCM [900m swim]
I did a similar practice on 14 May, but with 1000 meters of swim.
But for whatever reason, at this past Saturday's practice my shoulder was unhappy, and I cut my swimming portion short. Thus far, things have gone extremely easily, so perhaps this is just a small check. At many points I have had some soreness along my triceps muscle that I believe results from some tightness of muscles elsewhere that I am stretching and stretching to try to loosen--which is working gradually.
Furthermore, my body is still adjusting to the long-course pool. Thanks to the lack of turns, and therefore opportunities to push off the wall, swimming one length in a 50-meter pool requires something like 10-15% more effort than swimming two lengths in a 25-meter pool. As someone who relies heavily on those big jumps off the wall, I take a while to get used to the long pool. (It is a bit of a shame that this adjustment had to come so early in my recovery, but so it goes.)
Today at practice, though, my shoulder felt a bit worse, or else I was being extremely sensitive and noticed it sooner. Given that the soreness is in the front of the shoulder, what I have come to call the "danger zone," I take it very seriously, and play things conservatively, since I would rather let the thing heal, however long it takes. I am concerned, though, that despite my doing regular rotator-cuff exercises, there may be some lingering weakness and instability in the joint, and that I have finally reached the amount of swimming where I can notice it.
So I backed off. Today I swam only 550 meters in a 2400-meter practice.
And while I am trying to remain optimistic, having this happen a second time in a few days does make me a little nervous.
What also made me nervous this morning was sharing a lane with The Human Propeller. I am not joking: this guy, who is rather tall and long-limbed, gets some serious crazy arms-everywhere action going on his freestyle. And on his backstroke, his stroke is wide wide wide.
I do not really mind sharing lane space with people when they are swimming in their normal allotment of the lane, but with this guy I was like, "DUDE. Feel free to take your half of the lane wherever you want it."
So I could feel myself venturing toward having A Bad Practice. Instead of letting that happen, though, I thought I would try a meditative technique. Of late I have been reading a book by John Kabat-Zinn, who writes extensively about mindfulness--living in the present--and how living mindfully can help counterbalance stress, deal with chronic pain, etc. etc. In his book, he talks about different kinds of meditation--walking meditation, eating meditation, sitting meditation, etc.
This morning I thought to myself, why not swimming meditation? Or more technically, kicking meditation? I was doing a set of 150s, which were supposed to go 50 kick + 50 drill or swim + 50 fast kick, but I had modified them to become all kick, alternating FL/BR/FR, and I was doing all of this with a swim snorkel, which made breathing much easier. So during the fly-kick 50, I started focusing on my breathing, and trying to think just about breathing, and then after that got easy, just about the motion of kicking. On the breast-kick 50, I coordinated my breathing with the kick motion, and focused on that. (On the flutter-kick 50, I was trying to kick fast, and that required a little less meditation.)
But the important thing here is that IT WORKED. I got myself back into the present moment of my swimming and out of my fears. Of course, this sort of thing requires rethinking what swim practice is about, which I was prepared to do. The notion of mindfulness as a practice is not something you do to perfect, but rather something that is more a way of life or a part of one's regular doings. In learning about this, I have wondered, What would happen if I thought of swim practice as that kind of practice rather than as rehearsals for meets?
Today I learned that it is easier to have good technique. I realized that during my last 150, I felt stronger and more efficient than during the first one, even though I was tired (and especially so because I had forgotten to eat anything before practice--duh). In particular, I felt that my fly kick was more powerful, as I was getting propulsion from both my down-kick and my up-kick. My breast-stroke kick felt more powerful too. My flutter kick engaged my hips more.
I will continue to practice this, as it were.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Anniversaries.
As the semester is winding to a close (only two weeks of classes on the wall, two weeks of classes, take one down pass it--oh never mind), I am thinking a lot about my emergency surgery last spring. The sunlight is the same. The azaleas are the same. The dogwoods are the same. The feeling of almost being through the semester is the same. The feeling of trying to go back to the pool after time away is the same (well, similar). The sense of summer activities starting up around town is the same.
I consulted last year's calendar, and in so doing, found physical evidence of the pre-surgery me and the post-surgery me. The pre-surgery me made lots of plans, and wrote them all down in the book to keep track of them and make sure nothing fell by the wayside. The post-surgery me came at those plans with a heavy pencil and crossed things out--lunches for retiring colleagues, meetings, parties, concerts. In their place are physical therapy appointments, appointments with the infectious disease doctor, meetings with the Home Health nurse who would teach me how to use my PICC line and take blood samples from time to time. According to my calendar, I got my arthrogram done on Thursday, April 19, during the second-to-last week of classes. The weekend of pain was 20-21 April. My emergency surgery was 27 April, the last day of classes. Then summer vacation began, in a very narcotically foggy way. In the week of May 7, I recorded nine separate medical appointments, often two or three different ones on the same day.
Since my life is so structured by the academic calendar, I feel these dates less by the regular calendar and more by the academic calendar. Perhaps in some ways this is like marking holidays according to the phases of the moon, where there are other markers than a simple datebook to tell you where you are. I remember that my arthrogram hapened the week after I was in Ann Arbor for a conference. While I was there, I talked to several old friends about my shoulder, my not being able to swim, my not knowing what was up. I talked about not wanting to go the surgical route, because of all the complications I could imagine, including causing other problems in the shoulder. That week of school I had a bunch of meetings, trying to wrap up the business of the semester. I was scheduled for the MRI for Monday, but there was some scheduling snafu, and it was rescheduled for Thursday. (Memo to self: It is not productive to wonder whether if I had had the arthrogram done on Monday I would still have gotten an infection....)
I had the MRI/arthrogram done on a Thursday morning. I still remember watching the nurses prepare the needles and contrast solution according to "sanitary procedure." I still remember lying on the table under the camera with the enormous spinal needle in shoulder joint, while the radiologist kept jamming it around in there and then consulting a monitor to see whether now it was positioned properly. I remember feeling painfully vulnerable and violated. I remember walking out of the hospital in tears and shaken into a beautifully warm and breezy day. The whole scene is as clear as if it happened earlier this morning. This coming Thursday, 17 April, is the same day on the academic calendar, so it is my anniversary of the arthrogram.
The feeling of warm and breezy is the same. The smells of plants and pollen and flowering trees and rain-dampened dirt are the same. The sun rises in the same place and at 10:00 this Friday it will all feel very much the way it did on the day I left my orthopedist's office, frustrated that there was no definitive information from that MRI/arthrogram and very sore because (I thought) had had manipulated my arm and shoulder too much, given how sore I was after that long encounter with the gigantic needle. And then as the sun rises higher in the sky, it will look the way it did when I realized the pain was getting worse, and at high noon it will look very much like it did when my orthopedist's nurse, who I had called because I was worried about this pain, suggested that I take an Advil, as if I might not have tried that, say, before I called.
At night now, it still cools off, but we know there is something about even a night chill that feels like summer is on its way with its nights that offer no relief from the heat. And on this Friday night, I will remember finally getting some pain pills and taking them and feeling relief from the unbearable pain whose source I did not understand but now know was caused by a bacterial colony having a big party in my shoulder. I will remember that relief, and then I will remember the violent and uncontrollable nausea that the pills also brought during the non-time of the middle of the night, so that I was vomiting my guts up while trying desperately not to move my shoulder, where the pain had become indescribable and (since I could keep nothing down including pills), uncontainable.
Then perhaps this Saturday will be gorgeously warm, as it was when finally the PP loaded my pajama-clad and hopelessly pathetic self into the car, along with my mini trash can for puking, and took me to see that same orthopedist, who (thanks be) gave me a shot of antibiotics along with different pain drugs, this time combined with anti-nausea meds.
Friday, 25 April is the day I will honor the anniversary of my surgery, scheduled in a big hurry for the same day after an appointment with a different orthopedist--who became my shoulder surgeon--discovered evidence of infection in the joint. When I was lying in my hospital bed, all I could see was a silent view of waving trees and sky, and I thanked those trees and sky for their company. As I write this, the trees are leafing out as fast as they can, so they will look as lush and wonderful as they did last spring.
So these anniversaries are almost upon me. I will be too embarrassed to mention them to most people, because what I do not need now is to be told that I am being overdramatic. Since I have resumed the making of plans in advance, I will have other things to do on these days besides remember. I have a class and two thesis defenses scheduled on Thursday, and that evening I plan to go to a concert, a performance by the child of dear friends. (His spring concert last year was crossed out.) On Friday I visit my massage therapist. Next Friday in my calendar reads "Last day of classes," written in the same scrawling hand that noted the same fact in last year's calendar. I am back to making plans, though I do so now in pencil.
But in and among those plans, I need to decide how to mark these anniversaries.
I consulted last year's calendar, and in so doing, found physical evidence of the pre-surgery me and the post-surgery me. The pre-surgery me made lots of plans, and wrote them all down in the book to keep track of them and make sure nothing fell by the wayside. The post-surgery me came at those plans with a heavy pencil and crossed things out--lunches for retiring colleagues, meetings, parties, concerts. In their place are physical therapy appointments, appointments with the infectious disease doctor, meetings with the Home Health nurse who would teach me how to use my PICC line and take blood samples from time to time. According to my calendar, I got my arthrogram done on Thursday, April 19, during the second-to-last week of classes. The weekend of pain was 20-21 April. My emergency surgery was 27 April, the last day of classes. Then summer vacation began, in a very narcotically foggy way. In the week of May 7, I recorded nine separate medical appointments, often two or three different ones on the same day.
Since my life is so structured by the academic calendar, I feel these dates less by the regular calendar and more by the academic calendar. Perhaps in some ways this is like marking holidays according to the phases of the moon, where there are other markers than a simple datebook to tell you where you are. I remember that my arthrogram hapened the week after I was in Ann Arbor for a conference. While I was there, I talked to several old friends about my shoulder, my not being able to swim, my not knowing what was up. I talked about not wanting to go the surgical route, because of all the complications I could imagine, including causing other problems in the shoulder. That week of school I had a bunch of meetings, trying to wrap up the business of the semester. I was scheduled for the MRI for Monday, but there was some scheduling snafu, and it was rescheduled for Thursday. (Memo to self: It is not productive to wonder whether if I had had the arthrogram done on Monday I would still have gotten an infection....)
I had the MRI/arthrogram done on a Thursday morning. I still remember watching the nurses prepare the needles and contrast solution according to "sanitary procedure." I still remember lying on the table under the camera with the enormous spinal needle in shoulder joint, while the radiologist kept jamming it around in there and then consulting a monitor to see whether now it was positioned properly. I remember feeling painfully vulnerable and violated. I remember walking out of the hospital in tears and shaken into a beautifully warm and breezy day. The whole scene is as clear as if it happened earlier this morning. This coming Thursday, 17 April, is the same day on the academic calendar, so it is my anniversary of the arthrogram.
The feeling of warm and breezy is the same. The smells of plants and pollen and flowering trees and rain-dampened dirt are the same. The sun rises in the same place and at 10:00 this Friday it will all feel very much the way it did on the day I left my orthopedist's office, frustrated that there was no definitive information from that MRI/arthrogram and very sore because (I thought) had had manipulated my arm and shoulder too much, given how sore I was after that long encounter with the gigantic needle. And then as the sun rises higher in the sky, it will look the way it did when I realized the pain was getting worse, and at high noon it will look very much like it did when my orthopedist's nurse, who I had called because I was worried about this pain, suggested that I take an Advil, as if I might not have tried that, say, before I called.
At night now, it still cools off, but we know there is something about even a night chill that feels like summer is on its way with its nights that offer no relief from the heat. And on this Friday night, I will remember finally getting some pain pills and taking them and feeling relief from the unbearable pain whose source I did not understand but now know was caused by a bacterial colony having a big party in my shoulder. I will remember that relief, and then I will remember the violent and uncontrollable nausea that the pills also brought during the non-time of the middle of the night, so that I was vomiting my guts up while trying desperately not to move my shoulder, where the pain had become indescribable and (since I could keep nothing down including pills), uncontainable.
Then perhaps this Saturday will be gorgeously warm, as it was when finally the PP loaded my pajama-clad and hopelessly pathetic self into the car, along with my mini trash can for puking, and took me to see that same orthopedist, who (thanks be) gave me a shot of antibiotics along with different pain drugs, this time combined with anti-nausea meds.
Friday, 25 April is the day I will honor the anniversary of my surgery, scheduled in a big hurry for the same day after an appointment with a different orthopedist--who became my shoulder surgeon--discovered evidence of infection in the joint. When I was lying in my hospital bed, all I could see was a silent view of waving trees and sky, and I thanked those trees and sky for their company. As I write this, the trees are leafing out as fast as they can, so they will look as lush and wonderful as they did last spring.
So these anniversaries are almost upon me. I will be too embarrassed to mention them to most people, because what I do not need now is to be told that I am being overdramatic. Since I have resumed the making of plans in advance, I will have other things to do on these days besides remember. I have a class and two thesis defenses scheduled on Thursday, and that evening I plan to go to a concert, a performance by the child of dear friends. (His spring concert last year was crossed out.) On Friday I visit my massage therapist. Next Friday in my calendar reads "Last day of classes," written in the same scrawling hand that noted the same fact in last year's calendar. I am back to making plans, though I do so now in pencil.
But in and among those plans, I need to decide how to mark these anniversaries.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Swim.
On Wednesday, I saw my surgeon again, and I got the go-ahead to return to swimming, not just kicking. My physical therapist and I devised a schedule for coming back--starting back at about 500 yards of swimming, with a maximum of three practices per week, and then increasing 10% each week. If I have problems--such as pain--I back away from that increase until the pain goes away. If there are areas in my stroke where I have trouble with mobility, he will give me more exercises. I will continue doing my regular exercises daily for a month, and then gradually back off some of the exercises and I get more of my strengthening from swimming.
I am thrilled to be at this point. I can remember any number of times when I thought this day would not come.
But I also have mixed feelings, in that I have not decided yet how seriously I want to return to the swimming. Of course I am excited to have other options for exercise and fitness (which I have seriously lost over the last six months or so, not to mention the months before that), but I am still wrestling with how I want to pursue this. Starting in the fall of 2004 and culminating in the spring of 2006, I had achieved a very high level of swimming fitness: during that period I achieved several USMS national cuts, trained at a high level (swimming with masters and my team's kids' squad), competed in a lot of meets (including numerous USA Swimming meets where I raced with little kids--humbling), and medaled in the spring USMS SCY national championship. To return to my fitness level of spring 2006 would require a tremendous amount of work, and I would basically be starting from scratch. I do not yet know that I want to make that commitment.
But for now, I am just swimming. On Wednesday, after my appointment with my surgeon, I went to the pool and did a session of 2000 meters, of which 450 meters were swimming. Much of that swimming (300 meters) I did while wearing long fins, and I never swam more than a 50 at a time (for most of the swimming, I alternated 25 swim with 25 kick). I was both not surprised and a little surprise by how hard it was to swim, as I realized how weak my arms are (especially the left, but really both of them). On Thursday and also this morning, I was very stiff in my left arm, but PT exercises and stretching helps loosen that up.
And now for the next week or so, I am at the beach, doing the spring break thing. Note: for me, the "spring break thing" does not include big parties with lots of undergraduates gone wild. Instead, it will be a pretty quiet week, where my biggest decisions are which knitting project to work on, whether to go for a bike ride or watch the ACC tourney, whether to eat here in the condo or go to a restaurant, whether to sit around in my jammies or venture out for a newspaper, and how far to walk on the beach. I'll need to do some work in there too, but still. My condo looks out on the tennis courts, so this morning I am listening to the pock, pock, pock of someone's first game of the day.
I am going to see if by the end of this week, I can get myself back to a point where I can return to swim practice next week. I think that having feedback from my coach now, when I am trying to rebuild my stroke and trying to be very careful about pacing my recovery, could be a very important thing. But first I need to get to a mental place where I feel good about being at practice.
But for now, should I ride my bike on the beach or go pick up a New York Times?
p.s. Go Heels.
I am thrilled to be at this point. I can remember any number of times when I thought this day would not come.
But I also have mixed feelings, in that I have not decided yet how seriously I want to return to the swimming. Of course I am excited to have other options for exercise and fitness (which I have seriously lost over the last six months or so, not to mention the months before that), but I am still wrestling with how I want to pursue this. Starting in the fall of 2004 and culminating in the spring of 2006, I had achieved a very high level of swimming fitness: during that period I achieved several USMS national cuts, trained at a high level (swimming with masters and my team's kids' squad), competed in a lot of meets (including numerous USA Swimming meets where I raced with little kids--humbling), and medaled in the spring USMS SCY national championship. To return to my fitness level of spring 2006 would require a tremendous amount of work, and I would basically be starting from scratch. I do not yet know that I want to make that commitment.
But for now, I am just swimming. On Wednesday, after my appointment with my surgeon, I went to the pool and did a session of 2000 meters, of which 450 meters were swimming. Much of that swimming (300 meters) I did while wearing long fins, and I never swam more than a 50 at a time (for most of the swimming, I alternated 25 swim with 25 kick). I was both not surprised and a little surprise by how hard it was to swim, as I realized how weak my arms are (especially the left, but really both of them). On Thursday and also this morning, I was very stiff in my left arm, but PT exercises and stretching helps loosen that up.
And now for the next week or so, I am at the beach, doing the spring break thing. Note: for me, the "spring break thing" does not include big parties with lots of undergraduates gone wild. Instead, it will be a pretty quiet week, where my biggest decisions are which knitting project to work on, whether to go for a bike ride or watch the ACC tourney, whether to eat here in the condo or go to a restaurant, whether to sit around in my jammies or venture out for a newspaper, and how far to walk on the beach. I'll need to do some work in there too, but still. My condo looks out on the tennis courts, so this morning I am listening to the pock, pock, pock of someone's first game of the day.
I am going to see if by the end of this week, I can get myself back to a point where I can return to swim practice next week. I think that having feedback from my coach now, when I am trying to rebuild my stroke and trying to be very careful about pacing my recovery, could be a very important thing. But first I need to get to a mental place where I feel good about being at practice.
But for now, should I ride my bike on the beach or go pick up a New York Times?
p.s. Go Heels.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Feels like swimming.
Last night at practice I tried again to do some one-arm drills (with the "good" arm, of course): this time, they felt just fine, so I did a set of 50s, with the first 25 being one-arm drill (cycling through free, fly, and back) and the second 25 being kick, thinking I should be careful not to overdo it. Since it kept feeling OK, I made it a set of 18 x 50s, or 6 times through the cycle of strokes. I did the whole set with the big fins, so there would not be too much pressure on the extremely out-of-shape upper body. Felt great all the way through: even the rotation for free and back did not cause any pain in my "spot," where the labrum was stapled back together. And best of all? It felt like swimming.
WEDNESDAY, 30 JANUARY
1000 kick warm-up (500 with fins, 500 without fins)
900 one-arm drill + kick (18 x 50, alternating FR/FL/BA)
100 easy
300 BR/FR kick (no fins, of course)
TOTAL: 2300 meters
WEDNESDAY, 30 JANUARY
1000 kick warm-up (500 with fins, 500 without fins)
900 one-arm drill + kick (18 x 50, alternating FR/FL/BA)
100 easy
300 BR/FR kick (no fins, of course)
TOTAL: 2300 meters
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
O Happy Day!
Went to see my surgeon today, and he told me to take the sling off and get back in the pool for some kicking and one-arm drills.
So tonight I'll go to practice and come home exhausted.
How cool is that?
So tonight I'll go to practice and come home exhausted.
How cool is that?
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Physical Therapy Update.
I have entered a new--active!--phase of physical therapy: strength training.
To warm up at home I still do pendulums, but at my PT's office I use the shoulder bike--a crazy-looking mechanism if ever I saw one, where you pedal with your arms. Most of my effort comes from my right arm. As my PT says, the left arm is "along for the ride."
Do not be fooled: I am still working on regaining mobility. I had quickly regained the first phase of my mobility (0 degrees for external rotation and 90 degrees for forward elevation). Now I am moving past those ranges, and adding other angles as well, to try to bring the joint gradually back to normal. What is even more exciting, I am starting to do these exercises actively. In other words, I use the muscles of my left arm and shoulder to do them, rather than using my right arm to guide, or being guided by my therapist.
But I have also added small stregth-building exercises. For instance, isometric exercises, done against a doorjamb, that will progress towards the regular range of rotator-cuff exercises (external rotation, internal rotation, elbow back, and arm straight out to the side). Also, I am starting to return to cable exercises--again, isometrically, which are performed by holding the arm and shoulder still and inducing stress by stepping with the body.
This all feels like progress.
To warm up at home I still do pendulums, but at my PT's office I use the shoulder bike--a crazy-looking mechanism if ever I saw one, where you pedal with your arms. Most of my effort comes from my right arm. As my PT says, the left arm is "along for the ride."
Do not be fooled: I am still working on regaining mobility. I had quickly regained the first phase of my mobility (0 degrees for external rotation and 90 degrees for forward elevation). Now I am moving past those ranges, and adding other angles as well, to try to bring the joint gradually back to normal. What is even more exciting, I am starting to do these exercises actively. In other words, I use the muscles of my left arm and shoulder to do them, rather than using my right arm to guide, or being guided by my therapist.
But I have also added small stregth-building exercises. For instance, isometric exercises, done against a doorjamb, that will progress towards the regular range of rotator-cuff exercises (external rotation, internal rotation, elbow back, and arm straight out to the side). Also, I am starting to return to cable exercises--again, isometrically, which are performed by holding the arm and shoulder still and inducing stress by stepping with the body.
This all feels like progress.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Thirteen Things I Could Do Without, Thanks.
Forgive me if I have become rather taken of late with the Thursday Thirteen notion. Hey, if I did a WiP Wednesday, Thirteen Thursday, and then Friday Random Ten, my blog could sustain itself!
But seriously:
Thirteen Things That Make Me Count Down to January 9:
1. Can hardly fasten own pants in public restroom.
2. Hooking and unhooking bra a bigger deal than it was in high school.
3. Almost impossible to fix own hair in a manner that would not embarrass own mother.
4. Cannot carry a pot of water from sink to stove.
5. Cannot wrap own Christmas presents.
6. NO SWIMMING (but this doesn't change until April, sigh).
7. Also no running or cycling or dryland. Walk. Walk. Walk.
8. Cannot change sheets on own bed.
9. Driving is a bitch (and possibly illegal).
10. Sleeping on back got old a long time ago.
11. Cannot open fridge and remove milk all in one shot.
12. Having only four wearable shirts (because they button up the front).
13. Wearing watch on dominant hand is awkward.
But seriously:
Thirteen Things That Make Me Count Down to January 9:
1. Can hardly fasten own pants in public restroom.
2. Hooking and unhooking bra a bigger deal than it was in high school.
3. Almost impossible to fix own hair in a manner that would not embarrass own mother.
4. Cannot carry a pot of water from sink to stove.
5. Cannot wrap own Christmas presents.
6. NO SWIMMING (but this doesn't change until April, sigh).
7. Also no running or cycling or dryland. Walk. Walk. Walk.
8. Cannot change sheets on own bed.
9. Driving is a bitch (and possibly illegal).
10. Sleeping on back got old a long time ago.
11. Cannot open fridge and remove milk all in one shot.
12. Having only four wearable shirts (because they button up the front).
13. Wearing watch on dominant hand is awkward.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Not all about shoulders.
"M" (presumably not for "murder") asked, "How many days left for the sling?"
The best case scenario is 26.
Yes, Twenty. Six.
That is because I am supposed to wear it until I see my surgeon again, which happens 4-6 weeks after the post-operative appointment. And because in my carefuly planning around the academic calendar I forgot about the Christian and federal holiday calendars, four weeks would be Christmas, five weeks would be New Year's, and so it is January 9 that I see him.
Sigh.
But that's not what I came to tell you about.
I came to talk about decorating Christmas trees. (Though I will take this moment to note that you would be surprised to what extent you use two hands hanging Christmas ornaments....)
I am not sure how you store your ornaments, if you store ornaments, but last year anyway, we seemed to organize ours by material. In one box are all the really fragile ornaments, made of glass or porcelain or stonewear, and most of them have their own little boxes and stashes of tissue paper or bubble wrap, or else they are wrapped in disintegrating Kleenex and stored in a plastic baggy. Then there are all the little crocheted ornaments, mostly made for me by the mother of some childhood friends, and along with those are a few cotton-stuffed felt ornaments with zigzagging and sequins and cotton balls affixed to represent ornamentation or lights or Santa's beard. The wooden ones are all in their little group, though I wonder sometimes whethere there is a yearlong feud between the flat ones and the ones with little moving arms and legs (I bet on the latter every time). Also, we have a sizable stash of homemade ornaments that are covered with gemlike beads: these all have their own box.
Ricketiest of all are the baked cookie-like ornaments that we made back in the mid-1970s. I only have a few of those, since most of them live with my parents, but the ones I have are mostly the same: a cut-out shape decorated with special magic markers, then with a paperclip glued to the back as the hanging apparatus. In most cases, the glue or the dough has caused the paperclips to rust, sometimes to the point they have broken apart. The ones my mother decorated still look really nice. The ones I decorated have a sort of abstract expressionist quality, but cut me some slack--I was four or five at the time! And one lesson we cannot seem to get through our heads: do not wrap these ornaments in Kleenex if you do not want Kleenex-adorned ornaments on your tree.
Somewhere, apparently with my parents' stash, is a black Christmas tree, that my father "decorated" during the Vietnam War. And similarly, there is a round one decorated with a peace symbol.
Our more recent acquisitions tend to gesture to people's hobbies and recent experiences. We have several rock-climbing Santas and a climbing shoe, as well as a little skier with the PP's name on it. There is a pair of cats wearing snorkels and diving masks and seeming to be chasing fish, as well as a female swimmer on a diving block. There is a trout commemorating some beautiful meals my Mother made us in France. And yes, there is a Santa decked out all in Spartan green. Thanks, Dad.
Lowest on our tree go the unfragile ornaments. (Have I mentioned that we have two cats?) These were mostly made by me, in school. There is one made of red burlap with a Christmas-card picture of Santa on it, adorned in some glitter. There is a big ball made from circles cut from Christmas cards (can you sense a theme?). There is a wooden snowman.
Because we have had accidents. For instance, about 4 years ago, some cat or another brought the thing down (or could you have sworn that it might have been both?). I do not know if anyone heard it happen, but when people emerged from sleeping, there was the tree, lying diagonally across the living room floor, with numerous glass and pottery shards around it.
Now we wire it to a window frame and a doorjam.
That mostly protects things, though it did nothing for the wooden penguin that took a foot-severing dive early this morning, bringing a felted Santa with it.
Truth be told, that was only one of many penguins. Too many to count, really. This all started some years back, after people came to learn about my fascination with things polar. (Especially narratives about polar exploration and dogsledding!) Then the penguins started appearing. First it was an ornament or two, then a few plush toys, or a book, or even a large light-up porch ornament, or a DVD of March of the Penguins, and then an entire string of lights adorned with penguins! Those were supposed to be Christmas decorations, but we decided to keep them up all year, and here is why:
Some years back I was at the meat market of my profession and I was walking into a hotel with an admittedly surly colleague. If you have spent time in big hotels during the holidays, then you know that they typically have big Christmas-oriented displays in their lobbies. In this particular hotel was a North Pole scene, complete with Santa, elves, polar bears, and penguins. Being the polar expert that I fancied myself to be, I said to my colleague, "Hey! Penguins don't live at the North Pole!" He sort of snorted back at me and said, "Neither does fucking Santa."
The best case scenario is 26.
Yes, Twenty. Six.
That is because I am supposed to wear it until I see my surgeon again, which happens 4-6 weeks after the post-operative appointment. And because in my carefuly planning around the academic calendar I forgot about the Christian and federal holiday calendars, four weeks would be Christmas, five weeks would be New Year's, and so it is January 9 that I see him.
Sigh.
But that's not what I came to tell you about.
I came to talk about decorating Christmas trees. (Though I will take this moment to note that you would be surprised to what extent you use two hands hanging Christmas ornaments....)
I am not sure how you store your ornaments, if you store ornaments, but last year anyway, we seemed to organize ours by material. In one box are all the really fragile ornaments, made of glass or porcelain or stonewear, and most of them have their own little boxes and stashes of tissue paper or bubble wrap, or else they are wrapped in disintegrating Kleenex and stored in a plastic baggy. Then there are all the little crocheted ornaments, mostly made for me by the mother of some childhood friends, and along with those are a few cotton-stuffed felt ornaments with zigzagging and sequins and cotton balls affixed to represent ornamentation or lights or Santa's beard. The wooden ones are all in their little group, though I wonder sometimes whethere there is a yearlong feud between the flat ones and the ones with little moving arms and legs (I bet on the latter every time). Also, we have a sizable stash of homemade ornaments that are covered with gemlike beads: these all have their own box.
Ricketiest of all are the baked cookie-like ornaments that we made back in the mid-1970s. I only have a few of those, since most of them live with my parents, but the ones I have are mostly the same: a cut-out shape decorated with special magic markers, then with a paperclip glued to the back as the hanging apparatus. In most cases, the glue or the dough has caused the paperclips to rust, sometimes to the point they have broken apart. The ones my mother decorated still look really nice. The ones I decorated have a sort of abstract expressionist quality, but cut me some slack--I was four or five at the time! And one lesson we cannot seem to get through our heads: do not wrap these ornaments in Kleenex if you do not want Kleenex-adorned ornaments on your tree.
Somewhere, apparently with my parents' stash, is a black Christmas tree, that my father "decorated" during the Vietnam War. And similarly, there is a round one decorated with a peace symbol.
Our more recent acquisitions tend to gesture to people's hobbies and recent experiences. We have several rock-climbing Santas and a climbing shoe, as well as a little skier with the PP's name on it. There is a pair of cats wearing snorkels and diving masks and seeming to be chasing fish, as well as a female swimmer on a diving block. There is a trout commemorating some beautiful meals my Mother made us in France. And yes, there is a Santa decked out all in Spartan green. Thanks, Dad.
Lowest on our tree go the unfragile ornaments. (Have I mentioned that we have two cats?) These were mostly made by me, in school. There is one made of red burlap with a Christmas-card picture of Santa on it, adorned in some glitter. There is a big ball made from circles cut from Christmas cards (can you sense a theme?). There is a wooden snowman.
Because we have had accidents. For instance, about 4 years ago, some cat or another brought the thing down (or could you have sworn that it might have been both?). I do not know if anyone heard it happen, but when people emerged from sleeping, there was the tree, lying diagonally across the living room floor, with numerous glass and pottery shards around it.
Now we wire it to a window frame and a doorjam.
That mostly protects things, though it did nothing for the wooden penguin that took a foot-severing dive early this morning, bringing a felted Santa with it.
Truth be told, that was only one of many penguins. Too many to count, really. This all started some years back, after people came to learn about my fascination with things polar. (Especially narratives about polar exploration and dogsledding!) Then the penguins started appearing. First it was an ornament or two, then a few plush toys, or a book, or even a large light-up porch ornament, or a DVD of March of the Penguins, and then an entire string of lights adorned with penguins! Those were supposed to be Christmas decorations, but we decided to keep them up all year, and here is why:
Some years back I was at the meat market of my profession and I was walking into a hotel with an admittedly surly colleague. If you have spent time in big hotels during the holidays, then you know that they typically have big Christmas-oriented displays in their lobbies. In this particular hotel was a North Pole scene, complete with Santa, elves, polar bears, and penguins. Being the polar expert that I fancied myself to be, I said to my colleague, "Hey! Penguins don't live at the North Pole!" He sort of snorted back at me and said, "Neither does fucking Santa."
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Now, with pictures!
WARNING: If you are squeamish about photographs of the insides of bodies, if you get grossed out by those scenes on CSI where they show bullets penetrating people's organs, or you are my mother, you may want to skip this post, as it contains arthroscopic photographs from my surgery.
I believe that in an earlier post, I told you that I had a SLAP lesion of the second type, which means that there was a distinct tear in the tissue that is supposed to connect the labrum to the glenoid bone. Sounds clear enough, but here is what it looks like:
I believe that in an earlier post, I told you that I had a SLAP lesion of the second type, which means that there was a distinct tear in the tissue that is supposed to connect the labrum to the glenoid bone. Sounds clear enough, but here is what it looks like:
(That is my doctor's handwriting on there, from when he was explaining the surgery to the PP immediately after it was finished, before I had returned to the land of the unanesthetized. The blue-gray thing in the upper right is probably a tube for drainage and suction during the surgery--yummy.)
My doctor was also able to see some effects of the infection from last spring. In this photo, the top white area shows how the tissue in question should look, but notice that the tissue in the bottom half looks kind of frayed. Thank you, infection:
The doctor did two things during the surgery. First, he used a couple of anchors (yargh!) to reattach the labrum to the glenoid. The anchors are the sort of sparkly blue things in the upper right:
(Again, that black line is my doctor's writing, showing the contour of the glenoid bone, in order to make clear that there is no longer a tear. Thanks to the anchors (avast!), the tissue can grow back there, making the connection secure.)
Then he shaved down a bone spur, to give my shoulder joint more room to operate and prevent further impingement:
(That one is kind of weird, I think, since it so clear where the bone was filed.)
All in all, it should take care of the problems. Meanwhile, I am gradually weaning myself off the oxycodone (after ill effects from trying to quit cold turkey. . .). And I am already tired of my sling.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
How long must I sing this song?
Joe asked, "How long until you can get back in the pool?"
I suppose technically I could get in the pool (not really to swim but to do therapy) after I get my stitches out on Monday, but the word from my PT is that I can go back to swimming in 8-10 weeks, which is mid-January or early February. Then it will be a very slow and gradual start, and I do not expect to be able to compete for quite some time.
But just being on the improving end of all this is a nice thing. Remind me of that when I get impatient.
For now I am doing very minimal PT exercises--pendulums, passive range of motion, external rotation to 0 degrees and forward elevation to 90 degrees. I will continue to do those thing for about 3 weeks, and then move on to full range of motion for external rotation and forward elevations. Then, in week 5, I start on active range of motion exercises. In the sixth week I can move on to seated rows, standing forward punch, shoulder shrugs, bicep curls, and bear hugs. I start weight training in week 78, but with a fairly limited range of motion and with minimal overhead activities.
Joe's question also made me think about a few other milestones:
Sling off: 4 weeks
Computer work: 4 weeks (though I can type one-handed in the meantime)
Driving: after I quit the big pain meds and get clearance from my doctor (2-3 weeks? depending on pain level)
Reading: once I back off the pain meds enough to concentrate for more than half a paragraph at a time
Teaching: once I am capable of maintaining a non-surreal conversation with more than one person at a time (though my students have assured me that they would like me to come back sooner. . .)
Sometimes I think that the pain meds don't have a real effect, but then I ride in a car, and I find that although the driver is only going 15 mph or so, it feels like we are careening around. Or I try to participate in a conversation with numerous people, only to find that I cannot keep up. Or I go to a yarn store to by yarn for a new sweater for myself, and I look at the label, wondering, "how much yarn is in this skein?" Then I look at it for a little while longer and still have no idea how much yarn is in this skein.
I suppose technically I could get in the pool (not really to swim but to do therapy) after I get my stitches out on Monday, but the word from my PT is that I can go back to swimming in 8-10 weeks, which is mid-January or early February. Then it will be a very slow and gradual start, and I do not expect to be able to compete for quite some time.
But just being on the improving end of all this is a nice thing. Remind me of that when I get impatient.
For now I am doing very minimal PT exercises--pendulums, passive range of motion, external rotation to 0 degrees and forward elevation to 90 degrees. I will continue to do those thing for about 3 weeks, and then move on to full range of motion for external rotation and forward elevations. Then, in week 5, I start on active range of motion exercises. In the sixth week I can move on to seated rows, standing forward punch, shoulder shrugs, bicep curls, and bear hugs. I start weight training in week 78, but with a fairly limited range of motion and with minimal overhead activities.
Joe's question also made me think about a few other milestones:
Sling off: 4 weeks
Computer work: 4 weeks (though I can type one-handed in the meantime)
Driving: after I quit the big pain meds and get clearance from my doctor (2-3 weeks? depending on pain level)
Reading: once I back off the pain meds enough to concentrate for more than half a paragraph at a time
Teaching: once I am capable of maintaining a non-surreal conversation with more than one person at a time (though my students have assured me that they would like me to come back sooner. . .)
Sometimes I think that the pain meds don't have a real effect, but then I ride in a car, and I find that although the driver is only going 15 mph or so, it feels like we are careening around. Or I try to participate in a conversation with numerous people, only to find that I cannot keep up. Or I go to a yarn store to by yarn for a new sweater for myself, and I look at the label, wondering, "how much yarn is in this skein?" Then I look at it for a little while longer and still have no idea how much yarn is in this skein.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Lying on a slag heap of blankets and magazines.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Luckily for you, I'll keep this brief, because the left arm is only partly armed and operational and I get feeling a bit dizzy if I am sitting up all the way for too long.
But yes, I am home, and the surgery went well. The doc says I had a type-2 SLAP lesion, which means there was "Separation of the superior portion of the glenoid labrum and tendon of the biceps brachii muscle from the glenoid rim." That clears it all up, right?
Essentially "separation" is the key word there, and now I have two little anchors (ahoy, mateys) reattaching the labrum to the glenoid rim. (I have some great photos from the arthroscope, so once I'm a bit more operational I'll post a couple of those.) Also, he sanded down the bone a bit, to take care of some impingement elsewhere in the shoulder. I was pleased that he was able to find such obvious things and then easily fix them.
Also, the whole thing went SO much more easily this time than back in April. I suppose not being really sick from an infection makes a big difference. And this time, since the surgery was planned in advance, I was in an actual orthopedic ward of a brand-new (and nasty germ-free) hospital, so the staff was very knowledgeable about how to deal with what was going on with me. I.e., no begging for pain meds, and they brought me broth after the surgery instead of a full meal--that kind of thing.
Now it is very good to be home, as I have company from the little kitties and such familiar comforts. (I do miss the movable hospital bed, though.) And it is "slingle bells" for me for about a month, and then gradual recovery.
As for all of you, I hope you get everything you want at Alice's Restaurant!
Luckily for you, I'll keep this brief, because the left arm is only partly armed and operational and I get feeling a bit dizzy if I am sitting up all the way for too long.
But yes, I am home, and the surgery went well. The doc says I had a type-2 SLAP lesion, which means there was "Separation of the superior portion of the glenoid labrum and tendon of the biceps brachii muscle from the glenoid rim." That clears it all up, right?
Essentially "separation" is the key word there, and now I have two little anchors (ahoy, mateys) reattaching the labrum to the glenoid rim. (I have some great photos from the arthroscope, so once I'm a bit more operational I'll post a couple of those.) Also, he sanded down the bone a bit, to take care of some impingement elsewhere in the shoulder. I was pleased that he was able to find such obvious things and then easily fix them.
Also, the whole thing went SO much more easily this time than back in April. I suppose not being really sick from an infection makes a big difference. And this time, since the surgery was planned in advance, I was in an actual orthopedic ward of a brand-new (and nasty germ-free) hospital, so the staff was very knowledgeable about how to deal with what was going on with me. I.e., no begging for pain meds, and they brought me broth after the surgery instead of a full meal--that kind of thing.
Now it is very good to be home, as I have company from the little kitties and such familiar comforts. (I do miss the movable hospital bed, though.) And it is "slingle bells" for me for about a month, and then gradual recovery.
As for all of you, I hope you get everything you want at Alice's Restaurant!
Monday, November 12, 2007
About one week left.
I had my pre-op appointments last week, and they made me nervous, as hearing about familiar-sounding worst case scenarios always does. And questions about living wills. And persistent and judgmental questions about religious affiliation.
(Have you noticed how ubiquitous TVs are in waiting rooms these days? My orthopedist’s office has recently moved to a fancy new facility, and their long waiting room has two sections: on the day I was there, one section had 3 big-screen TVs playing ESPN and the other had 3 big-screen TVs playing morning talk shows. The only area you could sit not in front of a giant TV was a small, had bench between the two sections, but since the sound was on in each zone, you then heard the sound of both. When I was moved into an examination room, I found another TV, though I did ask the nurse to turn that one off.)
But I also feel fairly prepared. I’ve stocked up on clothes that fasten in the front, on magazines for reading when I cannot focus on anything longer, on a couple of light books for when I feel ready. I have found folks to cover a few classes for me. I have some good stuff on the way from Netflix. My final exams are as far finished as they can be at this point. Some friends are supplying us with meals. I have written and submitted millions of letters of recommendation. We have juice, soup, and herbal tea in the house.
Meanwhile, I am reminding myself of several things:
1. I cannot prepare for every eventuality, even when I have sufficient notice.
2. I will let some things slide. People can deal.
3. It is OK to eat too many potato chips from time to time.
4. I have an entire week of work and life between now and the arthroscope.
5. The things that will be painful and inconvenient after the surgery will also get better over time.
6. Number 3 applies to chocolate, too. And sometimes whiskey.
7. There is more swimming on the other side of all this.
8. TIHII.
If all goes extremely well, I will get to have Thanksgiving dinner with friends. And they have kindly offered to supply us with a Thanksgiving dinner on any other night of our choosing, if we cannot do it Thursday.
Meanwhile, looking at yarn makes me happy.
(Have you noticed how ubiquitous TVs are in waiting rooms these days? My orthopedist’s office has recently moved to a fancy new facility, and their long waiting room has two sections: on the day I was there, one section had 3 big-screen TVs playing ESPN and the other had 3 big-screen TVs playing morning talk shows. The only area you could sit not in front of a giant TV was a small, had bench between the two sections, but since the sound was on in each zone, you then heard the sound of both. When I was moved into an examination room, I found another TV, though I did ask the nurse to turn that one off.)
But I also feel fairly prepared. I’ve stocked up on clothes that fasten in the front, on magazines for reading when I cannot focus on anything longer, on a couple of light books for when I feel ready. I have found folks to cover a few classes for me. I have some good stuff on the way from Netflix. My final exams are as far finished as they can be at this point. Some friends are supplying us with meals. I have written and submitted millions of letters of recommendation. We have juice, soup, and herbal tea in the house.
Meanwhile, I am reminding myself of several things:
1. I cannot prepare for every eventuality, even when I have sufficient notice.
2. I will let some things slide. People can deal.
3. It is OK to eat too many potato chips from time to time.
4. I have an entire week of work and life between now and the arthroscope.
5. The things that will be painful and inconvenient after the surgery will also get better over time.
6. Number 3 applies to chocolate, too. And sometimes whiskey.
7. There is more swimming on the other side of all this.
8. TIHII.
If all goes extremely well, I will get to have Thanksgiving dinner with friends. And they have kindly offered to supply us with a Thanksgiving dinner on any other night of our choosing, if we cannot do it Thursday.
Meanwhile, looking at yarn makes me happy.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Waiting Game.
It turns out there is something stranger, or maybe equally strange but in an exciting new way, than having surgery 5 hours after you learn you need it. And that is scheduling surgery and then waiting around for a month for it to happen.
Sure, I can plan ahead. And I mean that sentence two ways, because People, if there is one thing I am good at it is planning ahead! I plan my social calendar so far in advance that I feel like a dork. I plan my classes. I plan my week's workout schedule, and then plan meals around it. I plan out how I will spend each day of my vacation. Plan plan plan.
I tried to stop doing this late in the summer when I realized it was keeping me from living the now. "STOP PLANNING" said a sticky note on my computer monitor. I tried to, for a while.
Now I am a planning fiend again, but especially trying to plan ahead for the surgery.
So why do I still collapse in despair and frustration and anxiety at the end of the day? Cannot seem to plan out how to deal with those feelings, can I?
But Pre-Op Stage One Point Three is including Planning For Not Wearing Clothes That Must Be Put On Over the Head. I have bulked up my supply of cardigans, and my dear mother is lending/sending me some t-shirts that button up the front, after convincing me that installing a zipper into some old t-shirts might not fly. (Thanks, Mom!)
But amidst this flurry of frantic planning (read: denial), I still read blogs, so I came across this, from Magpie. That brought back memories of the weeks immediately after my last surgery, when I had daily appointments with nurses and physical therapists, and more therapy to do away from the appointments, and drugs to infuse, and pain meds and anti-nausea pills to keep track of (I had a lengthy log...), prune juice to drink..... You see what I mean.
So can I be forgiven this time for a bit of this überplanning? after all, for a few weeks in November and December, I may be trying to hold down two full-time jobs.
Sure, I can plan ahead. And I mean that sentence two ways, because People, if there is one thing I am good at it is planning ahead! I plan my social calendar so far in advance that I feel like a dork. I plan my classes. I plan my week's workout schedule, and then plan meals around it. I plan out how I will spend each day of my vacation. Plan plan plan.
I tried to stop doing this late in the summer when I realized it was keeping me from living the now. "STOP PLANNING" said a sticky note on my computer monitor. I tried to, for a while.
Now I am a planning fiend again, but especially trying to plan ahead for the surgery.
So why do I still collapse in despair and frustration and anxiety at the end of the day? Cannot seem to plan out how to deal with those feelings, can I?
But Pre-Op Stage One Point Three is including Planning For Not Wearing Clothes That Must Be Put On Over the Head. I have bulked up my supply of cardigans, and my dear mother is lending/sending me some t-shirts that button up the front, after convincing me that installing a zipper into some old t-shirts might not fly. (Thanks, Mom!)
But amidst this flurry of frantic planning (read: denial), I still read blogs, so I came across this, from Magpie. That brought back memories of the weeks immediately after my last surgery, when I had daily appointments with nurses and physical therapists, and more therapy to do away from the appointments, and drugs to infuse, and pain meds and anti-nausea pills to keep track of (I had a lengthy log...), prune juice to drink..... You see what I mean.
So can I be forgiven this time for a bit of this überplanning? after all, for a few weeks in November and December, I may be trying to hold down two full-time jobs.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Pre-Op, Phase One.
A psychologist friend of mine used to prescribe retail therapy for depression and cleaning therapy for anxiety. Not a bad drug, really, that latter one, and it has precious few dangerous side effects to be noted in the fine print or by that reassuring voice on the TV commercials.
(Side note: does anyone know where I can get the results for that study that showed that the Restless-Legs Syndrome drug can lead to strong gambling and sexual urges?)
Anyway, now that I have the surgery scheduled, I am trying to think about other things. But still: having more that 4 hours notice this time means that I can do some planning ahead, so that the whole thing does not catch me with loads of dirty laundry or no clean presentable pajamas or no food in the house. Here is where the cleaning therapy comes in: let's make this house spotless, shall we?
First we reorganize my study. Perhaps "reorganize" is the wrong word, because it suggests that the items in question had some organization in the first place, where in reality mostly they were only participating in the Piles System, which only proves viable in the short term, in my experience. Anyway, now books are sideways on shelves, instead of in stacks, except for those that I am actively reading: Jim Longenbach's Stone Cottage, Brock Clarke's An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes in New England, Courtney Martin's Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, and Dave Eggers's You Shall Know Our Velocity. (This list does not count the books in process that live in my bedroom, but trust me that I am not the sort to be reading only one book at a time. Or only four.)
And I have admitted to myself that the stuff I was writing back in August is on hold again for a while, so all the appropriate xeroxes and library books have been refiled. Sigh.
And some of the books that I rarely conult (such as my Turkish-English dictionary...) are upstairs in another bookcase.
Now my desk contains only the things I still need to do (articles to evaluate for journals, papers for conferences, files to process) and the old dining room table that we are going to sell is free of piles of books and old copies of The Chronicle of Higher Ed and all those things that tend to collect in one's workspace when we are not looking.
Given that I am manic-depressive about my clutter, this is a process that I have to go through from time to time, and by the time I have to do it, I want to do it. But this time was a little different, because I suspect it is also the first phase of my Pre-Op. I am also beginning to think about what I might need to have around for my recovery. Books are covered, as in addition to those in process now, I have an immense collection of books to read, so assuming that I can avoid enough pain meds to focus, I am all set there. More urgently, I am wondering if I might need some reward yarn, and whether to buy it before the surgery or wait until I have made it through (probably the latter, though I'll have to bribe a friend to take me to the yarn store).
Phase Two of the Pre-Op comes next weekend (I hope), because I decided finally to get a new bike. Although I have gotten a lot of mileage out of my old one, it is too big for me (what happens when you buy a used bike from a guy...) and so I rarely want to buy it. The new plan is to try diversifying my athletic pursuits in order to prevent (or at least minimize) further overuse injuries, and because I HATE RUNNING, cycling seems the better choice. So stay tuned for details and photos of the pretty new machine.
I'll have to end this here: I have more laundry and swiffing to do.....
(Side note: does anyone know where I can get the results for that study that showed that the Restless-Legs Syndrome drug can lead to strong gambling and sexual urges?)
Anyway, now that I have the surgery scheduled, I am trying to think about other things. But still: having more that 4 hours notice this time means that I can do some planning ahead, so that the whole thing does not catch me with loads of dirty laundry or no clean presentable pajamas or no food in the house. Here is where the cleaning therapy comes in: let's make this house spotless, shall we?
First we reorganize my study. Perhaps "reorganize" is the wrong word, because it suggests that the items in question had some organization in the first place, where in reality mostly they were only participating in the Piles System, which only proves viable in the short term, in my experience. Anyway, now books are sideways on shelves, instead of in stacks, except for those that I am actively reading: Jim Longenbach's Stone Cottage, Brock Clarke's An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes in New England, Courtney Martin's Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, and Dave Eggers's You Shall Know Our Velocity. (This list does not count the books in process that live in my bedroom, but trust me that I am not the sort to be reading only one book at a time. Or only four.)
And I have admitted to myself that the stuff I was writing back in August is on hold again for a while, so all the appropriate xeroxes and library books have been refiled. Sigh.
And some of the books that I rarely conult (such as my Turkish-English dictionary...) are upstairs in another bookcase.
Now my desk contains only the things I still need to do (articles to evaluate for journals, papers for conferences, files to process) and the old dining room table that we are going to sell is free of piles of books and old copies of The Chronicle of Higher Ed and all those things that tend to collect in one's workspace when we are not looking.
Given that I am manic-depressive about my clutter, this is a process that I have to go through from time to time, and by the time I have to do it, I want to do it. But this time was a little different, because I suspect it is also the first phase of my Pre-Op. I am also beginning to think about what I might need to have around for my recovery. Books are covered, as in addition to those in process now, I have an immense collection of books to read, so assuming that I can avoid enough pain meds to focus, I am all set there. More urgently, I am wondering if I might need some reward yarn, and whether to buy it before the surgery or wait until I have made it through (probably the latter, though I'll have to bribe a friend to take me to the yarn store).
Phase Two of the Pre-Op comes next weekend (I hope), because I decided finally to get a new bike. Although I have gotten a lot of mileage out of my old one, it is too big for me (what happens when you buy a used bike from a guy...) and so I rarely want to buy it. The new plan is to try diversifying my athletic pursuits in order to prevent (or at least minimize) further overuse injuries, and because I HATE RUNNING, cycling seems the better choice. So stay tuned for details and photos of the pretty new machine.
I'll have to end this here: I have more laundry and swiffing to do.....
Friday, October 19, 2007
Is it "Happy Birthday" or "Happy Thanksgiving"?
OK: it's official. In the latest installment of "My Shoulder Sucks: A Melodrama," I have a surgery scheduled for 20 November to fix the damned thing. Happy birthday to me. OR is it Happy Thanksgiving? It will fall smack in between, so why not both?
You might be wondering what exactly is wrong with my shoulder (I am too...). Apparently there is a tear in the labrum, and as I understand it, it is a SLAP lesion. (Read here about shoulder anatomy and labral tears.) This kind of tear will not fix itself; I have been trying to use physical therapy to strengthen the muscles around the shoulder, in hopes that that might take the pressure off the labrum and get rid of the pain.
But as I have thought more about this, and spoken with my PT, I realize that really it is not so much a question of whether surgery is needed, but when. So now it is scheduled.
I understand that while this is typically an outpatient surgery, I will be kept over one night, on IV antibiotics, to stave off a recurrence of the infection horror.
It is interesting: I can type this post without losing my mind in anxiety. That was not true on 21 September when my doctor first mentioned the prospect of surgery. This itself is progress.
You might be wondering what exactly is wrong with my shoulder (I am too...). Apparently there is a tear in the labrum, and as I understand it, it is a SLAP lesion. (Read here about shoulder anatomy and labral tears.) This kind of tear will not fix itself; I have been trying to use physical therapy to strengthen the muscles around the shoulder, in hopes that that might take the pressure off the labrum and get rid of the pain.
But as I have thought more about this, and spoken with my PT, I realize that really it is not so much a question of whether surgery is needed, but when. So now it is scheduled.
I understand that while this is typically an outpatient surgery, I will be kept over one night, on IV antibiotics, to stave off a recurrence of the infection horror.
It is interesting: I can type this post without losing my mind in anxiety. That was not true on 21 September when my doctor first mentioned the prospect of surgery. This itself is progress.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Small victories.
On Thursday I was supposed to travel to New York for a meeting. Thanks to some nasty weather in the northeast, and resulting delayed flights, I cancelled my trip and went to swim practice instead.
So there.
And a good decision it turned out to be: we did a set that we have done many times called "Maintain Distance." First we swim for 5:10 and keep track of our distance. Then we rest for about 30 seconds. Then we swim again, this time for 5:05, and we try to swim as far or further than we did the first time. Then, after 30 more seconds of rest, we swim again, this time for 5 minutes, and try again to beat or maintain our previous distance. The main set for the practice is two rounds of this, with about 3 minutes in between.
I probably do not need to tell you that I did all of this kick. The first round I did kicking on my back with big fins, and the second round I did on my stomach with my little cup-shaped fins and snorkel.
As we were swimming the first round, I remembered that we had done this some time before during my all-kick period. When I got home, I looked in my workout journal and found it: 8 February. Apparently I did not blog that practice, but I see from my journal that on that night I did the first round with big fins and the second with no fins (Lord, help me!). My distances then were:
8 Feburary 2007
ROUND 1: 325 / <350>350 = 1025
[75 easy]
ROUND 2: <225>225 / >>225 = 675
11 October 2007
ROUND 1: <350>350 / 375 = 1075
[75 easy]
ROUND 2: 250 / 275 / 300 = 825
The information for round 2 is not really comparable, since I used different apparatus the two different times, but the info for round 1 is, and seeing a little improvement there is heartening, particularly since the first set of data is from before my surgery and period of laid-up-ness.
So there.
And a good decision it turned out to be: we did a set that we have done many times called "Maintain Distance." First we swim for 5:10 and keep track of our distance. Then we rest for about 30 seconds. Then we swim again, this time for 5:05, and we try to swim as far or further than we did the first time. Then, after 30 more seconds of rest, we swim again, this time for 5 minutes, and try again to beat or maintain our previous distance. The main set for the practice is two rounds of this, with about 3 minutes in between.
I probably do not need to tell you that I did all of this kick. The first round I did kicking on my back with big fins, and the second round I did on my stomach with my little cup-shaped fins and snorkel.
As we were swimming the first round, I remembered that we had done this some time before during my all-kick period. When I got home, I looked in my workout journal and found it: 8 February. Apparently I did not blog that practice, but I see from my journal that on that night I did the first round with big fins and the second with no fins (Lord, help me!). My distances then were:
8 Feburary 2007
ROUND 1: 325 / <350>350 = 1025
[75 easy]
ROUND 2: <225>225 / >>225 = 675
11 October 2007
ROUND 1: <350>350 / 375 = 1075
[75 easy]
ROUND 2: 250 / 275 / 300 = 825
The information for round 2 is not really comparable, since I used different apparatus the two different times, but the info for round 1 is, and seeing a little improvement there is heartening, particularly since the first set of data is from before my surgery and period of laid-up-ness.
Monday, October 01, 2007
The thing that bothers me is someone keeps moving my chair.
Magpie got me thinking about They Might Be Giants, which is a happy thing on as beautiful an afternoon as this one.
And since I am now back from today's hour-and-fifteen-minutes of PT, I can really only type well with one arm. (Note to self: there was a little pain in some of the diagonal pullthroughs that I had to do, and also in exercises where I was lying on a table on my stomach and pulling up thumb first at the 9 o'clock position.)
So instead, I gift you with this. I was a little disappointing that nowhere in there did they give details about women's builds and sports, but I can guess that as a short squat one, I probably never would have been an Olympic swimmer. But what do you think?
And since I am now back from today's hour-and-fifteen-minutes of PT, I can really only type well with one arm. (Note to self: there was a little pain in some of the diagonal pullthroughs that I had to do, and also in exercises where I was lying on a table on my stomach and pulling up thumb first at the 9 o'clock position.)
So instead, I gift you with this. I was a little disappointing that nowhere in there did they give details about women's builds and sports, but I can guess that as a short squat one, I probably never would have been an Olympic swimmer. But what do you think?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
