Everything's happen for a reason, right?

April 24th was my Golden Birthday - which means I turned 24 on the 24th (your age and date of birth match!)  This was also the day I got into a minor car accident with my mom.  The short story is we spent the day in the ER, mom is doing well, and I get to deal with the joys of traffic court, insurance companies, and personal injury.

To say the past week or so of bottled up thoughts and emotions is a whirlwind would be an little bit of an understatement.  I have almost become emotionally numb (key word almost) to the fact that my body took a beating and I more or less am starting over in my recovery journey.  My hips were pushed out of alignment and my shoulders/upper back are a mess.

Good news, the accident didn't disrupt or harm anything relating to my TOS surgery!!!
Bad news, they think I tore my rotator cuff and need to see a specialist.

I am mentally prepared for the worst and even have it mapped out in my brain how it would work.  MRI next week, surgery this summer, additional physical therapy on top of my TOS recovery schedule, continued no physical activity/strenuous activity for another 6 months.

I keep thinking everything happens for a reason and wonder what this reasoning is.  I keep thinking what am I supposed to learn from this or how will I use this new journey in my life.  I may be getting a head of myself but my heart says I have a complete tear based on feeling.  My brain says the same thing but based on my mobility limitations, extreme weakness, tingling, and poor tracking or the grinding/popping of the joint when I do move my arm.

Hopefully, things really do happen for a reason and although this is negative it can become a positive and meaningful experience.


 

Gym Confessions

I've taken a long time to process how my life has changed throughout the past few months - which meant my blog posts have been far and few between.

Recently, I have thought a lot about life after TOS.  I've thought about how I feel, what I'll be able to do/can do, regain my inner spark....the list really does go on and on but then it hit me about 2 weeks ago at the gym.

I was walking at the gym - it is about the 4th time or so I have been there since my surgery and I decided to try jogging.  As I slowly jogged, I could feel the familiar tightness spread across my chest and neck.  It became harder to breath, the jostling around amplified the tightness and then there it was...a slight tingling in my hands.

Even though I only jogged 0.35 miles and created minor TOS symptoms - it felt great.  It also made me sad- I missed jogging, I missed the sense of peace it gave me.  I felt like me when I jogged.  I went to do my PT exercises and I just kept thinking about how jogging made me feel.

It was there in a dim light, nearly silent exercise room at 24hr fitness that I found out TOS never really goes away.  Sure the surgery was successful but I was naive to think TOS wouldn't be apart of my life post surgery.  TOS still impacts how you think or how you feel about simple day to day activities (at least it does for me)!  More importantly, I think i accepted the fact I'm scared.  Scared of TOS re-occurrence by pushing myself, scared my recovery may take longer than 'normal'.

I am scared I will never find that inner peace I left between miles 2 and 3...