lots of words wednesday
Yesterday, I went to see my ortho, the magical mystery man, Dr. P.
Good news: he seemed pleased by how well my shoulder is healing. "Wow, really good," were his surprised-voice words when he started testing my range of motion after I said, "hey, my shoulder is good!" I think this means that I'm going to get back in the pool this week. My lap-motion is still creaky, and I'll probably do 100-200 yards swimming, the rest kicking, but I need something different in my workout life or I'm going to go freakin' IN.SANE.
Less than good news: he says the next steps in treating my IT band are totally dependent on my patience with this injury. I fought the other IT band for over 4 years before giving the go-ahead to surgery, because I really didn't want to have it. Now, I've only been fighting this one for 6 weeks ("that's a lot less than 6 months," he says - the amount of time he was down with an IT band injury), and I don't want to have surgery, but I don't have 4 years of fight in me. So, in his words, it's a balance of how miserable it is making me against how long I can fight it - knowing, of course, that it might not matter in the end, if it just never heals. I talked to him about everything I'm doing, and he said: I'm strong, I'm doing everything right, I just need to decide. He said, pick a day. Maybe fight it for the summer, and decide to have surgery in the fall if it isn't healed by then. But as we sat there and talked about the surgery and the recovery and what I've been doing, he said instead, give it a month. Give it a month, then come back, and we'll either inject it again or decide to have surgery. Because I think - I hope - he can tell how frustrated and depressed and angry I am to be not running, yet again. And I also think that because I ended up in surgery over the first one, chances are much better I'll end up there anyway. Which is a depressing thought.
I'm kind of afraid of being flamed to death about "jumping" to surgery and "taking the easy way out" and many other things, but this is not my first time fighting IT band injury, and it's not a quick or easy decision to make. Surgery will take me completely down for about 2 weeks, and then it'll be 2-6 weeks after that before I'm out of post-surgery pain, and it'll be 3 months after surgery before I can really run again. As I spend the next month getting stronger (and sleeker!) and continuing to fight this with every insane PT-ninja-move I know, I'm also going to think through having surgery and weigh that outcome, so when the month is up, I've already worked through that decision. I've never worked as hard as I have in the past 6 weeks, and I'm going to put in another 4 and see where I am.
In a bid towards my normal wordless wednesday, a puppy pic. He's so very glad we're home.
Good news: he seemed pleased by how well my shoulder is healing. "Wow, really good," were his surprised-voice words when he started testing my range of motion after I said, "hey, my shoulder is good!" I think this means that I'm going to get back in the pool this week. My lap-motion is still creaky, and I'll probably do 100-200 yards swimming, the rest kicking, but I need something different in my workout life or I'm going to go freakin' IN.SANE.
Less than good news: he says the next steps in treating my IT band are totally dependent on my patience with this injury. I fought the other IT band for over 4 years before giving the go-ahead to surgery, because I really didn't want to have it. Now, I've only been fighting this one for 6 weeks ("that's a lot less than 6 months," he says - the amount of time he was down with an IT band injury), and I don't want to have surgery, but I don't have 4 years of fight in me. So, in his words, it's a balance of how miserable it is making me against how long I can fight it - knowing, of course, that it might not matter in the end, if it just never heals. I talked to him about everything I'm doing, and he said: I'm strong, I'm doing everything right, I just need to decide. He said, pick a day. Maybe fight it for the summer, and decide to have surgery in the fall if it isn't healed by then. But as we sat there and talked about the surgery and the recovery and what I've been doing, he said instead, give it a month. Give it a month, then come back, and we'll either inject it again or decide to have surgery. Because I think - I hope - he can tell how frustrated and depressed and angry I am to be not running, yet again. And I also think that because I ended up in surgery over the first one, chances are much better I'll end up there anyway. Which is a depressing thought.
I'm kind of afraid of being flamed to death about "jumping" to surgery and "taking the easy way out" and many other things, but this is not my first time fighting IT band injury, and it's not a quick or easy decision to make. Surgery will take me completely down for about 2 weeks, and then it'll be 2-6 weeks after that before I'm out of post-surgery pain, and it'll be 3 months after surgery before I can really run again. As I spend the next month getting stronger (and sleeker!) and continuing to fight this with every insane PT-ninja-move I know, I'm also going to think through having surgery and weigh that outcome, so when the month is up, I've already worked through that decision. I've never worked as hard as I have in the past 6 weeks, and I'm going to put in another 4 and see where I am.
In a bid towards my normal wordless wednesday, a puppy pic. He's so very glad we're home.
