Day 18 since my C7 Steroid Injection, The Road to Recovery

Monday, July 23rd, this day will go down as a turning point in my rehab.  All of the praying, visualizations, journaling, monotonous exercises & seeking out competent help finally paid off!

The past few days I was struggling to extend my left arm and do any kind of wrist flexion.  It was unbelievably painful to straighten my arm and turn my wrist up.  It was causing me so much discomfort that I wasn’t sleeping well.  I had a PT session planned with Dave at Pro Physical Therapy, and when I got there he asked how I was doing and I told him about my arm and showed him what I was struggling with.

He immediately knew what was up and hooked me up with Jeff and Emily.  They took me through a series of arm motion exercises to floss the muscles around the nerve.  After about 30 seconds to a minute of doing that, I could straighten my arm and flex my wrist with little to no pain.  Now keep in mind, I was doing all kinds of stretches and flossing on my own with little to no relief.  They had me moving in a minute or less.  WOW!

Asking for help from competent individuals and paying them for it, is the key to a successful life.  This goes for all areas of your life.  Find that person or those people who will challenge you, advise you, and most of all tell you honestly what you need to do vs. sugar coating it.  Then pay them for it!

Sleep last night was way better!  I am not out of the woods yet, however I really needed that turning point.  As the day went on my symptoms got better and better.  At the end of the day when I was icing before bed, the tingling and pain in my fingers was way down.  Still there but nothing like they had been!!!!!!

Get your top 10 done for the day, here they are in case you have not seen the list yet:

1. Pray, the power of prayer is amazing!  Pray for others, pray for healing, pray for strength, pray for love, pray to give, pray for forgiveness, pray for grace.
2. Journal – Keeps me in the NOW.  Helps me focus on what I can do and what I can control.
3. Affirmations – Present tense, I AM, personal.
4. Visualizations – I visualize healing.  Visualize the vertebrae separating and making more room for the nerves to heal.  Visualize dominating an ANW course:)  Visualize no stress!  Harmony.
5. Gratitude – This is part of my journaling but now more than ever I am grateful for what I do have.  When in pity party mode, just give of  yourself to others who are even less fortunate and all of the sudden your pity party goes away.
6. Nutrition- you have to eat well to live well.  Saw this quote yesterday – “You are what you eat ate”.  So basically, when you eat something you have to consider what that ate or where it was grown.  Think about that for a while.  Let it sink in.  Think about all of the food you eat.  Where did it come from and what might it have gone through to get to your mouth.
7. Meditate – new for me but very powerful in relaxing and reducing stress.  Like I wrote about in a previous blog, 90% of neck/back injuries are causes by tension stress and lack of oxygen in the muscles.  Meditation has been proven to help that.
8. Live above the line – Be honest, live with integrity.  Be honest with yourself the most.  You are not as good as you think you are.  I know I am not.  Hire a coach and get someone to tell you what they really see vs a sugar coated version.
9. Forgiveness- Never hold a grudge or resentment towards others as this is the ultimate in stress.  Holding onto any negativity in relationships is not good.  The biggest person to forgive is YOURSELF!
10. Give – I mentioned this in number 5.  Give of yourself, your time, your talents, your being.  Give however you can.  Give without any expectation of receiving.  Give unconditionally.  You will never regret it.

 

Here is a photo of the Manitou Incline in Colorado Springs.  We like to take on this challenge every few years to show us how weak we really are.   2000 vertical feet in less than a mile.  The people that actually use that to train are insane.  They will do it in oxygen restriction masks, ankle weights, bare foot, weighted vests, run it, you name it and someone is doing it.  Try it sometime.

 

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