Last month the MD got on my case about needing to really move the arm all the time because range of motion won’t come back on its own. I took this as an insult as I have been extending the elbow every day and even in the middle of the night while wide awake. Dave the P/T reefs on it 2x a week, taking me to the edge of puking as I lay on the table, arching my back and gritting teeth while he straightens the arm as far as it can go. We do this routine for about an hour after some pool work. Jim or Peggy who each take turns driving me to therapy are at the same time napping in the lobby.
So last week I went back to the MD, got fresh x-rays and had some face time. He was impressed with the extension to 10-degrees and said, “I didn’t think it would ever get that good. You might get close to 100% out of it.”
My range of motion answered his next question as to why I go through the Vicodin like Pez. That being said, I’ve started to cut back on the pain pills. I hurt more but also am more mobile and need the reminder of when to say when.
The good news continued on with the hip improving as well. The MD let me out of the wheelchair and onto crutches. This means I can get down to the basement and kill some of the day by doing laundry. I’m that bored. My first day on the crutches was the day A and I go to birthing class. The class is in the basement of the hospital and of course, as the session wraps up the fire alarm goes off and I have to crutch-it up two floors of stairs to get to the parking garage.
No wheelchair means a step up in rehab. Dave the P/T gave me enough work to do on my own to give some structure to my days beyond watching re-runs of Living Lohan. At the moment I do leg extensions and curls for the quad and hamstring at a whopping 7 lbs. I do arm curls and extensions with a 3 lb dumbbell that looks like a paper weight. And it hurts. My guns look like water pistols.
Today I started swimming laps at the community center pool. I did ¼ mile, 18 lengths, in 25 minutes. No lie. I think a dead body can float in the current faster than that. I am to swimming what tube socks, cut off jeans and a Schwinn Varsity are to cycling. If there was a 7-Eleven at either end of the pool I would have gotten out and bought some Little Debbie snacks or Fig Neutons to fight the bonk and get me back to the other end of the pool. Instead I soldiered on, doing my own free-style stroke which looked remarkably similar to a hurricane.
The real swimmers may have wondered if I was having a seizure. When I got out of the pool I cleared things up with my man-boobs and pasty belly hanging over the locker key tied to the waist of my swim trunks. In my mind, getting out of the pool and reaching for my 4-footed cane was a man-candy version of Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Fortunately there are enough mirrors in the locker room to keep me grounded in reality.
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