Week 21: what I would have done differently

May 20. For a week or so, I have lived in a world every-other-day pain. I go to the gym and use the cable column, the elliptical machine, and swim. The following day, I'm sore in both arms. The tendons are clicking, sometimes even more in the right shoulder. But the day of training I have virtually no pain at all. I still perform stretching exercises every day, and I'm using the Wii Fit quite a bit, especially the yoga and strenght exercise programs.

I'm now pondering whether or not to register for my first duathlon (=triathlon minus swimming; I'm still far too slow and weak for half a mile in a crowded cold lake, but I'm not a much worse swimmer than before the accident). I'm concerned about injuries, especially knee injuries while running (2 miles and 5 miles within 14 miles of biking in between).

In hindsight, there're a few things I would have done differently, had I known the healing process:

I would have kept exercising my hand grip more, which was very weak when I started PT. The motion would have increased the blood flow and possibly stimulated bone growth. Hadn't it been really cold and snowy, I would have tried to outside earlier on.

I would also have exercised my right arm, both before and during PT. When I used the cable column for rows today, my left arm was now stronger (some 50 pounds with much more to go).

But except for that, things went quite well. I meticulously followed the instructions from doc and PT. I watched my food intake, and I'm now back up to where I was before,  about 180 pounds.

May 23. All the $ numbers are in now. I had to pay more for PT than I thought, some $600 out of pocket. The entire bill charged by the PT clinic was in the $3,500 range, about $100 per visit.

So altogether I paid less than $1,000 of pocket and the total cost billed to the insurance company was less than $8,000. Quite a lot, but significantly less than having surgery.

Week 20

Two weeks without any PT or doc visits. My range of motion is fine, except for the behind the back "police move." I don't suffer from any severe pain, even when lifting my arm straight up with an eight-pound weight. I do, however, still feel the tendonitis, but that is nothing the prevents me from anything important in my daily life. One of my PT's last statements was, "increased range of motion will lead to increased strength." He was right, ROM and strength feed off each other. I haven't done much weight lifting the last weeks, but when I do, it's much easier than before.