Brain Overload

It looks like going back to school is going to happen. There are several details that need to be worked out, but everything is lining up in one way or another.

My head has been spinning all day.

Strange Things Are Happening To Me

Until a week ago, I thought the idea of ever going back to school was preposterous. The husband has mentioned on occasion that he thinks I should go back to school if I want to. Since he is a professor, he found that I can take 6hrs per semester if I'm enrolled in a degree program. (So no taking classes in this dept and that just to see what I like.)

Still thinking he was crazy, I talked to a spinning teacher at the gym about the Kinesiology Dept. She assured me that it isn't all gung-ho CrossFit people, so I checked out the website. After looking around, I know Kinesiology wasn't the right fit for me, despite my love for working out.

What I did find by clicking around was a Master's in Public Health. The program has four areas of focus including Public Health Physical Activity. The other areas include food safety and biosecurity, infectious diseases/zoonoses and public health human nutrition.

On a whim, I called the department and on Monday I have an appointment with the department head to discuss the program. The more I read about the program, the more excited I become. There are classes that don't sound as thrilling as others, and classes that sound dreadful (biostatistics). But all in all, it sounds intriguing.

I'm actually EXCITED about speaking with the department head on Monday! I'm forming a list of questions to ask. It would awesome if this is a great fit for me!

I worry I'm getting too excited about it.

Obviously, I have to take into great consideration the impact it could have on my family--both positive and negative. I could write out all of the pros and cons, but I think I'd be getting ahead of myself. Right now, I'm going to simply get more information and go from there. One step at a time.

Here I Go Again

I've never posted numbers of my weight here and I'm not going to start now. But let's just say that I'm up too much. I HATE the way I look in pics. I feel like such a failure.

One way that was really beneficial for me before was to post progress pics. So here we go again. BLAH.  :(

Range of Motion Progress

After a friend asked me how high I could reach now with my hurt arm, I decided to take some pics so that I can see how much progress I am making. Today is a normal day, not doing great with it, not doing bad. Some days I can reach higher (going forward), but all the other pics are accurate of what I can do consistently.

No smiles.. These are very uncomfortble for me to do still. You can see that I've gained weight. And you can see my oh so lovely arms. Should've worn a long sleeve shirt. Oh well. Just shows why I want plastic surgery! And another reason not to smile!

Straight forward, arms up:

Arms up, out to the side:

External rotation:

And reaching behind my back:

This is 6wks post surgery. I go back at 12wks to check progress again.

Progress!!

Yesterday I did some major cleaning. I helped the kids clean their terribly messy rooms, and even rearranged their (very light) beds. I put a bed skirt under the girl's bed, which involved lifting the mattress. By the end of the day, I was not feeling all that great and had to take half a pain pill before bed.

This morning I did more cleaning, including lots of laundry (no folding). Then I went to water aerobics and was able to do a bit more than I could last week, but had to stop b/c of pain. A couple of hours later I had physical therapy. To be honest, given everything I'd been doing the last 2 days, I was seriously considering canceling!

I got to PT and had to warm up with a pulley thing and was about in tears. I did several new exercises and even used 5lb weights to do kickbacks and bicep curls, as well as 15lb rows. I did lots of other stuff without weights.

My shoulder... omg. It's tired, but there is no pain. It feels like it's had a good workout, but again--no pain. I even just put my hair up in a pony tail that wasn't at the nape of my neck! (I've been able to do a low pony tail with some pain for a week or so. Prior to that, I couldn't lift my arm enough to even do that!)

I'm thinking that by next week I might be ready to join the other gym and do some real workouts!! I'll probably keep doing water aerobics for awhile so that I can get some arm movements in that are easy on my shoulder.

This is the first time in so long that I feel like I'm moving FORWARD instead of backwards or in limbo!

Small Town Crap

On Thursday, I found out that my shrink goes to the gym where I plan to join. And goes to the spinning classes I plan to take. What's that, you say? She may not go to the same ones as I do b/c she works and I don't? Ha! Oh no no no! I'm not that lucky! Because of her flexible schedule, she goes to the every classes I would go to--either the 6am or the 9am. I could join another gym, you say? Ha! This is by far the best option I have in this town. This is the gym I opted out of joining and went to CrossFit instead. The only bright side I can find is that if ever asked how I know my shrink, I could say from the gym instead of therapy.

For the time being, I'm doing water aerobics, water jogging and the recumbent bike at the school Rec Center. The range of motion in my shoulder isn't where they want it to be at this point and still hurts a lot. So I'm not quite ready to "really" workout, though I'm getting quite sick of this nonsense. I'm guessing I'll join the new gym in the next week or two. The Rec Center is nice, but I just can't handle working out with 18 year olds.. or 80 year olds. It seems like it's one extreme or the other.

I thrive on group classes. It's nice to commiserate with others who are going through the same class as you are. I've formed awesome friendships at the gym. Not that I think that I'll necessarily make friends at every gym I try. But it happens. Of course, with my shrink going to the same classes I will go to, I'm kind of concerned about what that will mean.

First Workout Post Surgery

I had my first workout today since about a week before my surgery. A friend teaches a water aerobic class and it sounded like a good way to get moving again. The jury is still out on whether or not it was a good idea.

On one hand, it was good to workout. And it was good that I know the instructor and she knows my surgery and knows what I was capable of doing once upon a time. On the other hand, I feel like a loser. I couldn't do a lot of the stuff. I left in tears b/c it hurt--my shoulder and my ego.

It's been 3.5 weeks and I don't expect to be able to do everything I once could, but come ON. It isn't like I had a major surgery!!

I'm glad I saved some of my pain pills because I'm heading to take one now and go to bed.