No weights for me for a bit

[annathepiper]

Went and saw Dr. Towbin this afternoon, who as I expected aspirated the swollen bit on my chest. Y'all don't want to know how much fluid he took out of there. But it was a good clean drain, and no sign of infection or anything. I strongly suspect I must have just damaged something in there trying to do chest-related weights exercises too soon. Meh.

So he slathered some antibiotic on there and taped me up and I'm supposed to leave the tape and cotton on for a couple of days. Then more antibiotic and bandaids. But no weights. At least, no chest-related weight exercises. I need to rethink my exercise strategy Wednesday night. I may have to just switch to doing treadmill for a bit.

Two things learned from this experience:

The 257 drops off at 128th and 116th, and I can walk right along 128th to come up on Evergreen the back way. There's a footpath that goes up the hill and right into the parking garage--and in fact as I was coming in, solarbird drove past me as she was coming in to meet me and park.

Also--though I kind of knew this already--my pain tolerance is fairly high. I tend to quite underestimate the amount of pain I'm in and don't realize exactly how much I was hurting until after the source of pain is gone. I was a little lightheaded just from sheer relief after Towbin was done.

I'm to come back in on the 14th and we'll see what's what then. He said "maybe" when I mentioned that I'd arranged to have the reconstruction done in September, which concerns me a bit, but we'll see how I continue to heal up.

Comments

[devichan.livejournal.com]

May the healing be quick and clean!

I'm the same way about slowly growing pain. Acute pain? I'm a total wuss. Chronic, gradually increasing pain? I never know what's going on until it's gone. When my gall bladder was removed, I was giddy with relief for months.

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Hope it all goes well!

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Urk... OTOH, if they bump the reconstruction into mid-October... Vertical Motion! :) (Gotta see the silver lining here :)

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

The pain tolerance thing...yeah. Living with chronic pain is "just one of those things." I don't like taking pain meds because when you come off of them you start to realize exactly how much pain you are in.

You're probably not going to run into too many exercises that don't engage the chest muscles to some capacity. Walking even requires chest muscle movement---and it's probably just the rub of muscle that hasn't fully reconnected to skin that's causing the edema.

Bicycle maybe? At least you can read and pedal at the same time!

[maellenkleth]

hrmf. Assume fluid mostly water, then bulk density 1.0; one litre weighs one kilo, so it is a great way to lose weight....

may as well look at the bright side of it, ne?

[bloody-keri.livejournal.com]

You probably did do the chest stuff too soon, but the good news is you can still do significant strength training with just leg stuff, primarily squats. It actually has the most effect on your overall body strength, because your legs are the powerhouse of your body. If you had to pick ONE exercise only to do, squats would be it. It's the most effective strengthening / toning exercise on earth, when done correctly. Seriously. So don't feel bad about laying off the upper body stuff for a bit, because although it's good for you it's far less significant in the overall strength routine.

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

Did he explain what the 'maybe' was all about? I'm guessing that your reasons for wanting the surgery done sooner rather than later are just personal "I-wants-it"? Cause yeah, obviously doing it when it's the best time for you is, well, best. And yeah, if you postpone it, then there is vertical motion and no worries at all about not feeling up for seeing the Boyz. ;)