Stretch of the imagination

I know you've been simply dying to ask me about physical therapy. Am I still going? How much of my range of motion have I recovered? OK, OK, just simmer down and I'll catch you up.

I think it's week 17 and I'm still going three times a week. Sessions are hard but nowhere nearly as intense and painful as they were in the beginning. Progress has been made. I was starting to imagine life after PT.

Until today.

For some unknown reason, today the muscles in the upper right quadrant of my back and shoulder and down my arm were extra super sore, which made the stretching session especially brutal. In fact, Mr. Competent didn't even have me work on the equipment - he spent the whole time stretching. And stretching. And stretching. I jiggled my feet, clenched my jaw, breathed through my teeth, and did everything I could think of to stop myself from ripping my arm from his grasp. Toward the end I was this close to yelling "Uncle," kneeing the poor guy in the groin, and running for it.

Relax, I didn't.

I can't quit, there's still work to be done. I still can't raise my arm up much past 90 degrees out to the side, and I can only hold it there for a few seconds. I'm doing much better with forward motion and can almost reach directly overhead, but my mobility out to the side hasn't progressed much for weeks. Months, maybe. And please, let's not even speak of my external rotation, whatever the hell that it. Although a couple of weeks back I was relieved to discover I could once again cross my arms over my chest.

You have no idea how important that is until you can no longer do it.

I'm supposed to be stretching at home every day, but for some reason I am finding it difficult to force myself do something to myself that FUCKING HURTS. I can take stretching sore muscles, but this is different somehow. So maybe it's my fault I'm not getting anywhere. I don't know. I just know that for the first time in several weeks, I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever again be able to reach back and unhook my bra right-handed. To make it worse, my boss has been making unhappy noises about me taking so much time off, so as of next week I'm only going to be able to go twice a week.

Yeah. Discouraging's the word.