And January is gone...

The day after I wrote my last post, I had my first post-surgery appointment with my physio who specialises in strange scapular issues that nobody knows how to treat, patients nobody knows what to do with.  My surgeon in Kentucky recommended him 6 months after my first surgery and he has been an invaluable resource of information and knowledge for me, and also for my regular physio, as well as a caring professional whose kind and unassuming manner belies the accolades and achievements he holds (I stumbled across his CV online when I was looking for details to send to someone - it's pretty impressive).  He is always honest; I always feel he tells me what he knows and what he thinks; and since I like to know things, and understanding as much as I can about all things shoulder/injury-related is a huge part of how I have coped with this, I appreciate being treated that way.  


In saying all that, my appointment last week was tough!  In every way.  The upshot is that February has to be a month of pushing through.  All the stuff I wrote about gymnastics is going to have to come to the surface again (after 3 years of trying to learn to push it down; to listen to my body; and to understand pain is a way of your body communicating - that's on hold).  I need to get a 30 degree increase of active motion with my arm this month, or there is a good chance my surgery could be classed as a failure; my tissue might not stretch out; I might run the risk of things scarring down again.


That was a hard thing to hear.  Not as hard as the new assisted movements I have to do though.... 


Example - an arm held straight up in the air is 180 degrees; I'm currently aiming to get to about 160 degrees.  At the moment it is taking a lot of 'effort' (i.e. pushing, pulling, leaning) from my physios to get it there, (and possibly a little more effort from me not to wriggle out their grasp and run away) -  attempting it myself at the moment is just pathetic - I have no idea what the number is, I'll just stick with "not even close" and "pathetic"........ and  agony.

And I will now admit that I think I have lost all the stuff I wrote about only a few days ago. Or maybe, the language of gymnastics is just not the same as the language of... 'controlled torture' I think I'll call it. I guess I was never really tortured in the gym - hard work, pushing yourself to your max and working on something over and over and over again while fighting through sore, tired muscles isn't really the same as forcing yourself to lie/ sit still while someone forces your arm into a position where it feels like it will snap if it goes any further - "like rocks crashing into each other..... and you could just crush them"  I described - "that's ok, I'd expect that" he said and pushed a bit harder.  But we weren't finished there.  Once in that absolute maximum position, feeling (honestly) as if he could just snap, crack(le) and pop my bones, he said: "Now reach up. Higher. Harder. Push against me. Resist this. Push down. Push up. Resist. Push with your elbow. Push with your wrist.  Push out the way. Push up again. Don't let me move it."   


Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest. Repeat. Rest.........

$%#&.

The idea (/ necessity) is to get my muscles working again.  Muscles that haven't been able to work properly for 43 months now.  The have to 'relearn' how to fire and how to work properly - and of course they are....... well, weak does't even describe it.  Useless is better.  Sometimes my arm still feels like a stick, hanging at the side of my body, but not properly connected.  It's an odd kind of sensation.  The point of working through the pain, to get the muscles to work goes with the theory that once the muscles work and are actually supporting my arm and balancing movements (i.e. multiple muscles are sharing the workload rather than just one or two muscles trying to compensate different movements), the pain *should* diminish. That's the plan, anyway.....

(It better be!)

And there's also self-inflicted torture - twice daily with my 'pulleys' that are fixed over my closet door, staring at me like an entirely innocuous nemesis. (Give me "sit in the splits while you watch TV" any day!) I can already say - 3 days in, I have not missed an exercise.  I may cry through it, I may feel - again literally, I could draw the lines on my body - the bands of tissue that are pulling on my ribs, and on my scapula and feel like I could pull them right out of position, or until they snap.  But I will never have anyone say to me: it didn't work because you didn't try hard enough; or: it didn't work because you couldn't fight through the pain.  I will never hear someone else say that, and I will never have a voice in my head saying that either.  Because so far, despite all the 'experiments' and failures and different exercises and different exercise programmes; I have done every single thing I have been told to do (this makes me a "compliant patient"), and I'm not going to stop now - something has to work.

Obviously, what I hope for, is to be told the surgery did work; it can be classed as a success.  That removing that scar tissue, and unsticking my humerus from my scapula (i.e. cutting away the scar tissue that was sticking the top of my upper arm bone to my shoulder blade  -  exactly what was happening) has made a difference.  The degree of difference remains to be seen; what pain, possible problems or other issues remain are still major unknowns; but right now, at this moment in time, the focus is on making sure this surgery has not been for nothing; that it will be helpful in some way.  That is what I am working towards, and that is why I will bite my gums or dig my nails into my skin until I bleed; I will grit my teeth, and I will ignore the watery eyes (it really bugs that closing your eyes does not stop tears); it is why I have already told my parents, my physio and his current interns that my eyes will water this month and they will just have to ignore that. And I will just have to ignore it all too.

So.......... February is set to be a tough month. I will need all the mental and physical energy I can muster, and hopefully I will work hard and see some progress.


 In order to have something else to focus on each day, even for 5 minutes, I'm going to try to make February a 'visual' month - just a picture, photo or image of some sort to sum up my day.  If I manage, it might be interesting to look back over it and see if it tells me a story.  Getting things 'out there' can be pretty cathartic, so hopefully with something else to think about, and to reflect on will be helpful. If not, I'll sleep and try again in March!

Looking ahead, this is how I feel:

Definitely 'fingers crossed' kind of a feeling

Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm

 ~ Winston Churchill ~

There's no such word as CAN'T in the gym....

Thinking about pain, physical therapy, surgery recovery, pain... again - it's hard not to think about it when you feel it 24/7, screaming at you above everything else; stealing your concentration and attention away from something thought ought to be infinitely more interesting and therefore effortlessly hold your focus; but the screaming from your body just never takes a break.  So….. I have been reading about pain; pain tolerance; pain threshold; pain scales.  Trying to learn about pain, and realising that as a chronic pain sufferer, I probably know just about as much as researchers know; from a different perspective, perhaps, but the point is I did not find any groundbreaking, life-saving solution to any of my problems.  Even trying to figure out what I should be doing - at what point is it good to push my body, but still let it heal? - doesn't have a simple answer.  So if nobody can tell me, how do I figure that out?  And how do I figure that out?

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/once-a-gymnast/

Finding the limit is the problem now...

 I'm genuinely beginning to think gymnastics - especially from a young age -  makes your brain form differently.  This is suspected (supported by a few studies) regarding learning a musical instrument; and research into bilingualism shows language learning definitely affects neural development.  I suspect starting gymnastics at a young age is a bit like learning a language.  If you learn a language before the age of ~7 years, your brain learns it as a first language - neural connections are formed differently.  I learned the language of gymnastics well before the age of 7.  Despite the fact I haven't trained or competed for 14 years in gymnastics, or 10 years in trampolining, those things don't leave you….. No matter how much you try!

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/once-a-gymnast/
(Typo not mine!)

  

The language of gymnastics [abbreviated]:

"There's no such word as can't in the gym"

"If you think you can't, you won't"

"Always end on a good one"

And things like this make perfect sense:

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/once-a-gymnast/

*"you're in the air"
Typo not mine... again!

Because that is how you get results: 

My last British Trios Finals 2001
(before I broke another bone & had to quit)

But now…...

"There's no such word as can't in the gym"

To physio:

"Yes, you can push my arm as far as you want... did I tell you my gum is bleeding because I'm biting on it?  Just saying…"

"Yes, I can do this - I can still see in front of me, it's only black behind me, so I'm fine."

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/once-a-gymnast/

"If you think you can't, you won't"

To physio:

"Yes, this is ok....... should I be feeling sick though?"

"Yes, it's going - how sore should it get before I stop you? It's beginning to sparkle now…"

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/once-a-gymnast/

"Always end on a good one"

To physio:

[Eyes closed, sweat dripping off me, breathing increased, heart booming, room spinning]: "But I didn't do the full set... I'm not finished...*Will this actually do more damage...? No? OK. Finish then."

*(Um, yeah I confess to doing this one on Wednesday - yesterday.  It was 'only' two more reps... out of a total of 5.... for a muscle that hasn't really worked that way for 43 months. I slept in the car on the way home.)

[Ditto]: "But that last one was terrible..... I'll just do one more." [Collapse on floor]

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/once-a-gymnast/

So apparently I have 'syncope without loss of consciousness' - that means fainting without actually appearing to faint.  This adds to the confusion - have I fainted?  Or not?
THEN WHAT DO I DO??!!

Lesson:

Physios do not count any of those as "cans". (Sometimes they shout at you, actually.  Nicely.)  'Trying' when it is sparkling or black behind you or you are seeing black dots; you can taste vomit, or blood; you are dripping with sweat after lifting (holding, really) a ONE pound weight; you can only do it if you close your eyes……..  do not count as 'trying' either.  They are generally regarded as doing too much and produce orders like "Stop. Now." or "Lie down….. Lie down NOW." or shouted to their interns - "get me a chair!"  and "get me water!"

In the gym, bleeding gums, spinning heads and feeling sick may be the norm; recovering from an injury is not the same as gymnastics. (Mantra: repeat ad infinitum.) 


Second Lesson 
[doctor/ physio attempting to enter my head]:

"If you worked really hard at training one day, you would take a rest day the next day.  This is like that."

"It's like anything: work a day, rest a day, work a day, rest a day…."

"If you were sore after training one night, you would take the next night off, wouldn't you?"

Umm……. I'm really trying, and I know what you're saying here…….. but I don't understand………..

Yup.  I think gymnastics skews your perspective on life.  It means we learn young how to work hard, develop great time management skills*; we are trained to demand perfection from ourselves - on top of a natural instinct; to never give up (and in our heads, we still think our bodies have the capabilities it had when we were teenagers).  Getting injured (severely) is not a good idea.  Physios and doctors - you will probably hate any ex-gymnast patients you have! (Also because we also know exactly how we like our ankle/ wrist/ knee/ elbow wrapped; what tape we want to use, and exactly where we want it...)

*Yes Mum, I know this does not apply to me right now....... I have good reasons! And I really do try!

Just for fun.... things that are not really 'normal' (apparently):
(All from: http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/)

I'd kind of forgotten about this, but it didn't strike me as
abnormal until I read this on Pinterest.  Last year!

As do gymnasts!

I didn't realise this was weird until the first time we did a group project
at uni and everyone was kind of staring...

It's incredibly difficult to resist this.  Still.

                                     

This is not normal? I still don't understand.... it's natural!

A little nostalgia:

Yeah, see below!

What a feeling........!
(Yes, that's me.)

 And too true:

However, I also think - a little bit of that stubborn determination built in may just feel like it's saving you sometimes.

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/

‘The greater danger for most of us is

not that our aim is too high and we miss it,

but that it is too low and we reach it.’

~ Michelangelo  ~

A week of good wishes for YOU

We're one week into 2015 and my blogging intentions have not exactly been realised (i.e. I've failed miserably - but I'm aiming for positive, so the first way sounds better!). 

So here is a week's worth of happy, positive, and inspirational words; wishes for 2015, and for life.

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/

“This world is but a canvas 

to our imaginations.”

  ~ Henry David Thoreau ~

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/

"Life isn't about finding yourself. 

Life is about creating yourself." 

   ~ George Bernard Shaw ~

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/

“The time you enjoy wasting 

is not wasted time.”

~ Bertrand Russell ~

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/

“Learn from yesterday, 

live for today,

hope for tomorrow."

   ~ Albert Einstein ~

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/

“Do not lose hold of your 

dreams or aspirations.   

For if you do, you may still exist 

but you have  ceased to live.”

   ~ Henry David Thoreau ~

Let your art blossom   © Gail Munro

And the day came when the risk to remain 

tight in a bud was more painful 

than the risk it took to blossom.

~ Anais Nin

http://www.pinterest.com/gmun22/

And throughout the YEAR!