Bet you never thought you’d read “my” and “baby” in the same sentence unless a plant or a cat was involved, huh?
Well, this ain’t a baby I want, either.
Content warning: below the cut is medical and biological talk, including descriptions of physical pain (but no pictures). Also, NSFW language, which honestly shouldn’t be a surprise around here.
If you don’t want to read all this unpleasant stuff, here’s the short version: I’m having a hysterectomy on October 10, and this is a welcome event.
I made a questionable decision this afternoon.
After coffee with a yogi friend, I was inspired to start climbing back on the yoga horse. Most yoga studios in my area only have Saturday morning classes, so I had very few options for something in the afternoon.
Whatever. I was feeling brave. I signed up for an all-levels Vinyasa hot class at a studio I’d never been to. Ninety minutes.
Physical therapy has been progressing nicely. I’ve “passed” all my flexibility/range of motion requirements, and am focusing pretty heavily on strength while making sure not to lose the flexibility. I saw the surgeon Tuesday for a check-in, and they were a little disappointed at my strength at this point in my recovery.
September 13 was the 3-month mark for the surgery, though, which is when I’m supposed to be clear to resume some more interesting exercise. With surgeon and PT approval, I’m doing so. I’m taking things quite slowly, because if I do anything off-hours that leaves me too sore to move (or worse, injured!), then my PT work will be compromised. The plan is to do an activity, wait a day to see how sore I get, and then judge from that whether I should cut back or can ramp up.
My first activity was swimming. I’m not a skilled swimmer anymore — I can happily fake a breaststroke for a while (my favorite), but my smoothest method of traversing water is the good ol’ doggie paddle. I can do it forever.
It’s also, pleasantly enough, the easiest on a weak shoulder.
So Wednesday night, after that decision was made in PT, I swam. It was 21:00 and the pool was deserted and beautiful. The water was a little chilly, but I warmed quickly enough. I swam laps for just 20 minutes, which was about when my shoulder started to show signs of weakening. (The best test for that is for me to stand and raise my arm straight out overhead at about 45 degrees. If there’s any “clicking” or jerking in that range of motion, the shoulder is очень устал [very tired].)
Later that night and this morning, my shoulder was tight, but that could very well be due to the increased weights during Wednesday morning’s PT appointment. I tend to start getting sore from an activity right around 24 hours afterwards, so we’ll see how I feel tonight.
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.
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’m a little late starting PT, as I mentioned before, but this morning’s session went well. The therapist had me lie down and relax as she gently wiggled my arm away from my body in different directions. I was impressed that my arm could get as high as it did after being in one position for seven weeks.
