2009 Opener

I haven't posted in awhile - been a little distracted with Facebook :)

So far 2009 has been all about physical recovery.

I dislocated my shoulder on Dec. 13th - slipped and fell walking back to my car after dinner downtown. Thank god my friend Jeremy was with me, because I could not move my right side, let alone drive. He drove me to the hospital and I spent the next 3 hours in absolute agony. It was awful... My friend Javier and his wife Bobbie were with me the whole time. Don't think I would have survived without them. The doctor set my shoulder - not fun and I got to go home. I spent the next two weeks snowed in and dosed up on pain pills - thanks to the horrible snow storm in Portland. The good thing was that I was able to still work, logging in from home, so I didn't take anytime off for my injury.

Because Portland was basically shut down due to all the snow and ice, I did not get into see the specialist for two weeks. My brother's girlfriend, Andi, works in physical therapy so she told me what exercises I could do and to start using my arm and to not keep it in the sling all day. According to the specialist this turned out to be great advice and had helped to heal my shoulder correctly. All the x-rays showed that the bones were still set correctly and the doc referred me to a physical therapist.

So...current day... I have been in physical therapy for 4 weeks and am amazed at the progress we have made in my shoulder mobility. I do exercises every night and they are getting easier every time I do them. I am so happy that I am healing...this has really been a challenge to go through.

Having my shoulder injury has given me the motivation to get back into an exercise program and get the rest of my body back into good health. If I would not have been so heavy, I would not have dislocated my shoulder when I fell. Nothing like a little misery to give you a good wake up call...:) So, I started going to a step aerobics class at Ballys. It felt amazing to work out at that level again and to survive it. The guy who teaches the class is David and I found out that he has lost over 100 lbs. Talk about a source of inspiration!! Guy is a machine...looks like an olympic athlete - would never have guessed he had a weight problem at one time. Think this class is going to be the secret to my success!! Very exciting!

I had sushi lunch with my friend Denise this week and she somehow convinced me to sign up to do the half-marathon in Porltand with her in October. She is helping to keep my motivated by giving me this goal and calls me her GIT - Girl In Training. LOL!

So far 2009 is off to a good start :)