It’s been almost six weeks since my shoulder surgery and now I’m starting physical therapy. I’m a bit behind schedule because I’ve been sick with the flu for the last week. Before I talk about pt I just want to say this quickly. Due to the nature of the surgery, rest and sleep will be compromised. It’s difficult to stay healthy during this time. Don’t over do it! I started to get back into the swing of things at work, and I think that dealing, I mean enjoying, with all of the annoyances, uh, challenges, was too much and I got worn down and picked up a bug. Rest up, and stay healthy! On to pt…

I arrived at the physical therapists today around 3pm. After the usual forms and such, my therapist came to get me and led me to an exam room. Her first steps were to inquire about the injury history. Why do all medical professionals grin when you start with, “I was rock climbing”? At any rate, I explained the injury a year or so ago, my attempts to rehab it, and my inability to return to activity. She asked how much I knew about the procedure itself. I explained Dr Alfandre had inserted one anchor between eleven and twelve o’clock. That level of knowledge really helps her understand where to focus her rehab efforts. She laughed when she asked me if I had had previous surgery with rehab and I pointed to my left shoulder. Following the verbal history she performed a physical examination of the injury.

With me standing, she checked my posture and looked for lack of symmetry. She didn’t scream so I’m guessing everything was okay. She did mention that it didn’t look like the scapula muscles had atrophied much. That’s good as these keep the shoulder blade flat against the back. For the final part of the evaluation she tested my range of motion. She tested the joint in four or five different range of motions. Vertical and external rotations are not to bad because I’ve been performing the stretches routinely. Any motion that takes my upper arm out and away from my side is pretty painful and limited in amount of movement. The last test that she performed, tested the “looseness” of the joint. Holding my arm straight and just a bit away from my body, she moved my arm such that she could feel the play in the shoulder socket. I have quite a bit of fluid in the joint, more on that later, but the joint itself felt stable to her. So it’s starting to look good!

To be continued…