I'm Back

It has been awhile since my last post, quite a while. Since my last entry I continued class, went to Italy for vacation, fell in Italy and then came home. Shortly after my return to America I noted that my shoulder had been injured in my fall. After a couple of weeks I decided it was time to see an Orthopedist. I tried anti-inflammatory medications for a couple of weeks, helped a little, but not 100%. Went back to Ortho and had the choice of continuing drugs or having an MRI. I chose the MRI. Here's where there is "good news-bad news". The good news was the surgery could repair my shoulder; the bad news was that I had 3 tears in my Rotator Cuff.

In the interim, I had been reading all about shoulder repair and the subsequent physical therapy. I knew what I was in for;, the surgery, the pain, the rehab. But, I wanted to be done with it. I was tired of groaning in pain while getting dressed, backing off in yoga, and generally feeling like a one-winged bird in denial. So, on December 21, I had my "Trifecta" surgery. The surprise was that I also had bone spurs!! Fortunately, arthroscopic surgery is a miracle in itself. The spurs were merely sanded out and the muscles reattached with Titanium screws and sutures to hold it together. So now I have 4 Titanium screws holding my shoulder together.

As of today, I am six weeks post-surgery. I go to PT twice a week, and, so far, have been meeting my goals. This week I have 6 new exercises, the worst being to put my injured left arm behind my back and raise it up using a strap and my right arm. YIKES, this is the worst one I have had to do since I started PT. It feels like a knife is in my shoulder and someone is trying to tear my arm out of the socket.

In the meantime, I continue my Yoga studies. I have been attending class and the Yoga training classes. I do what I can and actually am somewhat amazed at what I can do. I have been visualizing myself doing some of the poses I have studied while injured, and when I try them, I am able to do them. It is very strange. I read a Rotary newsletter about a gent who was a POW in Vietnam. All the while he was being held captive [for 7 years], he visualized himself playing a full round of golf. Each hole, each stroke, right down to the muscles. When he was finally released, he went to play his first round and scored something low, close to 60 if that is possible. Is this the power of the mind or what???

So now I am approaching the end of the second trimester of training. A couple of weekends ago I attended a Restorative Yoga workshop in Asheville, NC. It was great, I learned so much and even had the opportunity to design a class for someone with varicose veins. In addition, I taught it. This activity gave me such a boost. It felt great to teach and walk the student through getting into and out of asanas. Not to mention verbalizing the benefits of the pose and visualizations to enhance the pose. I was able to provide enhancements and my recipients appeared to have enjoyed and benefitted from them.

Wow, I have come a long way!!