I went this morning for my first therapy appointment. I thought it was for PT, but instead they had me with an OT. He diagnosed my problem and honed in on it pretty quickly, finding all the spots that hurt the most. lol Without imaging it’s impossible to know for sure, but getting an MRI or CT Scan would cost a lot of money and wouldn’t change the course of treatment at the moment, so we’re just going to go with it for now.
Basically he feels like my wrist is most likely just a bad sprain that’s slowly healing, and my shoulder is likely a rotator cuff issue, either a small tear, or a bad strain. He doesn’t think it’s a big tear because it’s not giving out on me with a fair amount of pressure, and because I’ve been able to get it from not being able to move it or put pressure on it to where it is now, which is just painful at certain extensions. If it wasn’t getting any better over all that time, he’d assume it was a tear that required a surgery. He did tell me that if it’s a small tear, still the only cure is surgery, and you’d be down for Four Months recovering from that until you got full mobility. Eek. No.
He also told me he was impressed with the exercises and stretches I’d been doing on it to get it to improve to this point. He says most people just baby it until it gets really bad and said I must be a strong person. If I was a strong person, I’d be in shape all over, not just doing stretches/exercises on a painful arm and wrist, but hey, I appreciate the kind thought. lol
He was pushing around on top of my shoulders on the muscles, and the left was definitely tighter and more painful than the right. He said he guesses I always have that tension in my shoulders, and I said yeah, but the left side actually hurt when he pushed on it. Compensation from my shoulder muscles apparently for the injury.
He gave me four more stretches and exercises to do at home to work on. If it gets better over 6-8 weeks, then that’s the answer. If it doesn’t, it’s probably a small tear, and I either live with it, or have surgery. I doubt that I’m going to willingly go ‘down’ for months, so…
Then came insurance. He was an OT and apparently my insurance won’t cover anything on him. So they turned today’s visit into a free consult for me, which was kind, and next time I go to a new guy, a PT. Insurance will cover part of that, but I still have to meet my deductible, so I’ll be paying out of pocket for it already, but at least it’ll count towards the deductible for future things. *sigh*. It’s too bad, I liked this guy, Nick. He was smart, he knew his stuff, and he cared, listened, was great to work with. That is the most I’ve been manhandled in awhile and he made it not even that terrible for me. LOL
He spent time manipulating my wrist and shoulder, and doing things that hurt. He apologized and mentioned me possibly punching him a couple of times. I told him I knew that’s what I was there for, to be abused. I did the things I felt safe doing on my own, but when it came to painful things, I didn’t know what was okay or necessary to push past versus what could cause more harm, so that’s why I came to him, and they did a great job with it. It did hurt, though. A few times he started chatting with me to distract me. I knew he was doing it so it didn’t work, but I appreciated the effort. ;)
The facility has a lot of open windows with a lot of natural light in it, and all the employees were cheerful, bright, helpful, and kind. I’m gonna go write some kind of Facebook review for them. I got a great vibe there all around, and even the people coming in in a lot worse shape than I was were in relatively good spirits working on their issues.
All in all, it was a good experience, I have homework to do, and am hopeful that the rest of this will improve.
After that I went to Frankfort, picked up Andy and family, and headed to West Palm Beach, Florida. Florida. Oh, Florida. The FAA Airspace website said to expect a ground stop at PBI. That means no traffic in or out at the exact airport I was going to. So I filed early, picked up an early clearance in the lobby on my cellphone, pretended like I'd be there before 2 pm. It worked, I got my clearance, and made it into Palm Beach just fine. And out.
I was trying to put the Conquest away in the hangar. It was after hours, so they had gone home and left a hole. But not much of a hole. There was a plane ready to start up, I was in the way, a guy sitting in a car staring at me, and I couldn't get the plane in the hangar by myself. It was too tight, I couldn't see both wings and the tail at the same time, and there were nice airplanes in the way of each of those. So I pulled the plane out to the ramp so everyone else would leave, which they did. And then I left the plane there because I didn't want to run into anything. *sigh*
My left arm and wrist are both sore from today. They definitely got a work out. He also gave me 4 more exercises to do, and a stretch band. I used it in the airplane while I was sitting for 6.7 hours. Hopefully these exercises do some good...
I had a guy scheduled to do T-6 training tomorrow and Wednesday. I hadn't heard from him so I contacted him today. He's in Texas doing something else and wants to reschedule. Meanwhile I've had those days blocked off for over a month. That doesn't make me super happy. I've never had somebody stand me up on T-6 training before. Usually it's a memorable enough experience that they're looking forward to it. He didn't even apologize. I'm debating even contacting him again. I don't like being stood up. It's rude.
Kaylee's graduation is Saturday evening. We'll have to be there around 5 pm to get seating, it opens at 4:30. Ceremony begins at 6, and doesn't end till 8. That poses a problem for us for dinner. Before then is too early, and afterwards, driving to Indy would be too late. So we'll probably just do something small afterwards, and then we got reservations for Kaylee's favorite place Friday evening instead, at 7 pm. That of course means more driving on Friday, which also isn't ideal, but at least it's not eating at 9:30 pm...
I enjoyed the palm trees today, and even enjoyed the flight to myself for 6.7 hours, reading a book, listening to music, nice weather. I'll take it.
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