1 (Recovery) Down

My shoulder surgeon said it would take six months to fully recover from my labrum repair and biceps tendon reattachment. My surgery was on May 19th so allowing conservatively for any impact from daylight savings I should be fully recovered from today.

I am not fully recovered. I did all my resting, stretching, rehab and conditioning as prescribed and by the start of October I was about 90% there. I still had pain under load pushing or raising anything. I never got to the point where I could shoot a basketball. That is, I never got to the point I was at before I had the surgery.

After cutting back my strengthening at the start of November I still made no progress, and then last week my shoulder has regressed further, to the point that I'm in pain from simply lifting my arm. Maybe the physio will have some idea when I see him on Thursday. Maybe he'll just give me another rub.

I'd been really optimistic about the operation, but this year has really reinforced how fragile my body is. Unlike mine, the hands of the clock are working efficiently and I don't really know what I'll do when all my limbs are net negatives.

I was in considerable pain on my morning walk yesterday. My shoulder was throbbing and I had a whole day of work ahead of me. I didn't know how I was going to get through it. But I wasn't depressed. I realised that I have been at this point so many times in my life - back, wrist, knee, hamstring, hamstring, hamstring, shoulder, knee, shoulder - where pain completely owns me that I've become inured to the feeling. I know that I'll grind through the resting, stretching, rehab, beer, and conditioning until I get back to the point where I can injure myself all over again. Another recovery down, onto the next one.