Editing but not writing, rotator cuff, & school

Egads.

I didn't realize I hadn't posted since early November.  A lot has happened.  Some good.  A lot not.  Much of what is not good is not content for a public blog post.

So let me get to what's relevant:

If you follow my mish-mash blog because you found me while doing a Rotator Cuff search, let me bring you up to snuff on what's happening with that:

I'm a week shy of 7 months since my surgery to repair a full tear of the rotator cuff in my left (non-dominant) shoulder.  I just had my last physical therapy visit last week--not that I couldn't still use PT, but there is nothing left for them to do for me that I can't do for myself.  While the shoulder is better than it was, the jury's still out on whether surgery was a success.  I still have 20-30% weakness in the shoulder and more importantly, I still can't do any boxing or lift heavy weights and the shoulder is sore (not medication inducing sore, just sore) all the time.

The physical therapist tells me that the soreness may stick with me for at least a year.  As far as the surgeon is concerned, he's a smashing success because he reattached the tendon.  To me, there is no grade A until I'm back living my life and doing the things I want to do.  So once again, I'm left to wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Rotator cuff recovery simply takes forever.

If you stumbled across my blog due to writing fiction, here's the update:  I've done no writing in several months but I did have the great pleasure of editing someone's manuscript for them last month and it is just as valuable to edit someone else's manuscript as it is to write your own.  Both help improve your skills in the realm of writing fiction.  It was a great manuscript.  One major stumbling block in the early part of the manuscript, but otherwise, an awesome read.

School:  I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being back in college now that I'm taking classes I have a genuine interest in (for those out of the loop I'm dual tracking a Strength, Nutrition and Personal Training degree along with the long, long, long-term goal of going into Physical Therapy or, as a plan C, Nutrition.  To be honest, if I was going to live long enough, I would do ALL THREE! 

The classes are kicking my tail.  I'm liking the nutrition aspect a lot more than I thought I would so that's good to know.  The only bad part of my re-education is that I went to high school in the dark ages--didn't have to take much math or biology, so I'm having to make up for those deficits now.  It's hard, but I'm motivated and hope I can pull it off.  Besides, I work with a lot of youth who know a lot more about this stuff than I do so I have resources. 8-)  The trick is navigating my 10 credit hours with full time and highly stressful work.  But I'm on a mission.  I'll make it.  I need career change desperately.

And last but not least, if you stumbled across this blog reading about my journey to better health, here's the update:  (the backstory is over the last 21 months I lost 55 pounds, have MOSTLY kept it off, but HAVE put back on about 12 pounds.  However the lowest weight I dropped down to, I realized subsequently, was not a sustainable weight).

Most frustrating things about the health journey:  Eating healthy continues to be extremely time consuming.  It was much easier eating hot pockets and pizza.  Fast. Easy.  Next to no prep time.  But eating healthier, despite the tremendous time drain, has been so, so much better for me.  The other frustration I already mentioned--I still can't do any boxing (which means no stress outlet) and still can't lift the kind of weights I want, though thankfully I can lift smaller weights so I'm now not completely without weight training, one of my passions.

So that's it till the next post.  I'm hopeful that one day soon I'll be able to post that the shoulder pain is completely gone and I'm boxing again.  That's the dream. 8-)

P.S.  Weight training tip I learned from the physical therapist--when you're doing weights, balance out your training by doing as many pushing exercises as you do pulling to balance out the muscle training.  I need to keep that in the forefront of my mind as I forge ahead in rebuilding my fitness.

Have a great February!