I had an appointment today with Dr Alfandre to check on my progress for the first four weeks of physical therapy. Really it has only been three weeks of PT because I was sick for the first one. Needless to say things are looking good. He asked if I had any pain and I told him that I get some fluttering in the muscles in the front of my shoulder and on my shoulder blade from time to time. Sometimes I get some dull aches near where the anchor was placed, but no sharp pains or twinges. He wasn’t too concerned.

The doc checked my range of motion for anomalies and didn’t find any. He commented that I’m still a bit stiff but much improved. Next he checked my strength. As instructed I resisted his attempts to force internal and external rotations. He did seem a bit surprised, as I was able to resist quite well. Resisting upwards and downwards motion is more difficult but I do have some muscle strength. He mentioned that my right shoulder muscles have atrophied compared to my left. I guess that is to be expected though. The funny part is my left arm and shoulder muscles always used to be smaller than my right. This surgery has allowed my left side to finally catch up.

All in all Dr Alfandre said that I’m “right on track” and should recover well at this point. Going forward he wants the physical therapists to be a bit more aggressive with the stretching and begin to focus on some strength exercises. He also said I can go back to pretty much all my day-to-day activities within reason. No, rock climbing isn’t a day-to-day activity. I asked if driving a stick shift would be okay and he said it would be. This is great because I can get out my summer car. Basically it’s back to life as normal, but if “something hurts, don’t do it.”