Moar PT

Halp. They keep adding exercises, but not taking any away. O_O

My current routine takes about 45 minutes, and I do it three times a day. Forty-five minutes.

1. Pendulums (I like front/back and side-to-side better than circular, but I do them all)
2. Table slides (1×10 at two angles)
3. Pulleys (1×10 at two angles)
4. Single-side shoulder blade pinch
5. External rotation stretch (1×15; done lying down with a cane)
6. Lying cane raises (1×15)
7. Isometric flexion (1×10)
8. Isometric extension (1×10)
9. More pendulums

Each of those (sans the pendulums) has a 5-10 second hold on it. If not for audiobooks and kick-ass music, I’d probably be tempted to shortcut some of this. Which would be sad, because holy shit, my arm is feeling better. Just today, in fact, I was able to reach the knobs on both my kitchen and bathroom sinks. Took concentration and effort, but I did it.

I just got the two strength exercises (the isometric ones above) yesterday, and I’m already getting better at them. Kinda cool. I tend to think of strength gains as happening over a matter of days, but obviously I’m not being as hard on my widdle shoulder muscles as weightlifting would be.

Last night was also my first night sleeping without my sling. I woke up a few times in agony when I tried to sleep on my stomach. The shoulder does not want to roll forward like that, and while I’d normally (courtesy of the pre-surgery issues) sleep with my fist under the shoulder to level it out, my elbow doesn’t currently like that, either.

Ugh. Damn sling.

No driving yet. I have to be completely out of the sling and off narcotics during the times I’d be driving. My only dosage for tramadol is a once-per-day, so I switched to ibuprofen on Sunday, but I’m still wearing the sling when out of the house, so I can’t drive.

I don’t know if my physical therapists would give me brownie points for progress (consistency and tenacity, yes), but I feel like I’m getting better at a pretty good clip, especially considering I was in the sling for a week a half longer than is normal (which means the shoulder and elbow were weaker and stiffer that they’d otherwise be after this surgery).

I would be super-crunk if I could drive after my PT appointment on Friday. Not that I could, because I literally don’t have my car, but I could by that evening.

Yeah, that would be nice.