Sylvia's Journal

After my physical therapy session today I have been upgraded to a 6 oz weight for my shoulder exercises – this is a small can of tomato paste. It seems like a small victory but it is huge progress for me. It is now 10 months since I had my rotator cuff surgery, fixing the 4 massive tears. My exercise regime has been going in fits and starts. I have my range of motion back but there is no strength. Every time I do strength exercises – there are colorful rubber bands all over our living room, to Faro’s delight – I end up with a pain in my arm that requires me to stop for a while.

But now I am finally making progress – after the tomato paste can I promoted myself to the pink one pound weights and for the biceps I am up to 2 pounds, leaving the rubber bands behind. I am debating whether to pack my weights for my trip to Geneva. Once, in the Philippines, I had to argue hard with the security lady at the airport who wanted to confiscate my pink weights, as they could be used as weapons; just like my toe nail clipper that was removed in Rwanda. It is no use arguing with the security frontline workers and for the nail clipper I put up only a very weak defense; but in the Philippines I asked for the chief, and he let me walk with my weights after I pleaded that my recovery would be severely compromised without my weights. May be he had rotator cuff surgery himself.