Day 23

It's been 23 days since surgery.  That's just over 3 weeks.  I'm almost back to normal with the exception of not lifting things and getting tired easily.  I had another Physical Therapy session this morning and tried Zumba Gold yesterday.  It's so strange how some simple moves can feel so different now.  The very first song during the warm up of Zumba had an arm movement that I've done hundreds of times previously and never thought would be a problem, but I felt it!  I had to take it so slow (slower than the moves already are during Gold!) and make sure that it was good stretching pain not hurting pain.  I had fun the rest of the time, once I realized what I could and couldn't do

Before surgery I worked really hard building up my core muscles so that I could handle movement post surgery with ease.  My torture for this was holding plank position for 2 minutes at a time.  It was tough, but I could do it.  Now, instead of holding plank, my two minutes of torture is simply lying on my back with my hands behind my head letting gravity pull my elbows down to the ground.  This sound so simple, but is so challenging for me right now.  Most of my pain right now is in my armpit area rather than directly on my chest.  There just a crazy tightness there.  My physical therapist said that this is typical because that's the center of where everything goes to (nerves, vessels, etc.)  and that my chest is numb therefore, I'm not feeling the muscle stretching pain there. 

She talked to me today about Axillary Web Syndrome or Lymphatic Cording. Because of the pain I describe during movement sounds like that, we're going to just make sure we keep things moving and stretching so that it doesn't turn into it.  I don't really want guitar like strings poking out from me, so I'll be working hard on those exercises.

 I even felt so good today, that I went to Younkers to do a little shopping with their Good Will sale.  Of course, the one day I choose to do something fun for myself during recovery, I see a student's mother there shopping as well.  Oh well, she was very understanding and I got myself some good deals.