I’ve been doing physical therapy and my arm is getting stronger. It’s not really about how hard they’re working it, but about letting my body know what’s safe to do. I was in the gym yesterday, taking left-handed shots and layups. I attempted a right-handed shot and it was stiff and fell well short. I can’t get full extension while bearing weight yet. Then I wondered if it wasn’t so much a mechanical issue that would require time, but a strength one, which requires persistence. So I shot the ball in the air for a while, to build up some heat and fight through that wall. I started realizing what I can do. I started taking shots again. All of my shots were falling short but rotation was good and they were right on the front of the rim. I kept shooting and I knew it wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when. When that first one fell in, I looked around the empty gym, wishing there had been someone to hug. <\/p>\n
The last couple of weeks, the hardest thing about PT is the stretching. I’ve told her to punch me and knock me out if she has to. I’m guarding the hell out of it, and it’s really hard to get my body to relax. And I’m also ticklish. Last week she had to jam her thumb into a pressure point in my armpit and I giggled myself into tears. “You do not want to give up that arm,” she said. <\/p>\n
On Monday, it was the same battle. I told her that next time, I’m gonna drop by the bar across the street and have 6 tequila shots before I come in. It’ll be like a Mexican surgery. I’ll be easy to work with, but flammable. The talk turned to tequila, drinking, Percocet, weed, coke, meth, with other people in the room joining in. I loved it when the guy wearing shorts and the top half of a business suit chimed in, “Weed is like wine. They’re so many different types.” I would have given him a fist bump if my PT didn’t have my arm in a lockhold. I love it when a room around me colors a little outside the lines and doesn’t even notice. <\/p>\n
So I made a commitment. Next appointment, I would see what would happen when I went in with some tincture in me. If I would be able to focus and relax.<\/p>\n
I was supposed to get up early today, but couldn’t. Snoozed for an hour and a half before turning it off completely, then got up at 11:30. Was downstairs heading towards PT before I realized I’d forgotten to drink the tincture. So I went back up. Was working with another girl today. First exercise was the hand bike, and I went really hard and fast because I needed to speed my metabolism up to get it into my system. I didn’t think it’d kicked in time, but the strange thing is I always know a magnetic zone by the music. I Could Hold You in My Arms by Ray LaMontagne came on and I felt a little part of my brain crinkle with happiness. That song was recently my mood and I’d spent a while listening to it. Good music, I said to the girl, and she told me how much she liked this song. I recommended Amos Lee. <\/p>\n
So it was the new girl who was stretching me. As I got on the table, she said that when Erin, my usual PT, had said that I’m ticklish, she remembered the day I was giggling so she knew right away who I was. I told her that I’d made a commitment to relaxing during the stretch. So she worked my arm, and we talked about music. She commented that I’m doing really well with the stretch today. I closed my eyes and thought about missile silos, dark underground caves holding secrets to be explored. I realized that every time she pressed in and my body spiked in vigilance, instead of fighting the pain, I would melt into it, thus allowing it to dissolve. I think the girl was really amazed. She got my arm to go full range. I’m proud because when I allow it, I’m surprisingly flexible. She commented again that I’m doing a really good job of going to my happy place, and I laughed. Told her about how I had basically trained for this day, found a place to store my mind so I could let her do her job while I thought about something else. Digging deeper. <\/p>\n
I was putting on my coat when Erin came in. The girl told her I’d done really well with the stretch. <\/p>\n
“I told you,” I said. “I was going to come in today and make it happen.”<\/p>\n
She laughed. “So what are you on? Alcohol or drugs?”<\/p>\n
“What?” I looked offended. “I trained for this. I had to pull my mental focus. Thinking about missile silos and space to explore to concentrate on a different plane.”<\/p>\n
“Oh wow.” She looked genuinely impressed. “Hey, I’m sorry for asking if you were on something,” she said. <\/p>\n
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. Broke out in a sly grin. “I’ll tell you next week.”<\/p>\n
The room cracked up. I was up front booking my appointment. In the other room, “I told you she’s hilarious,” Erin said. That made me happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been doing physical therapy and my arm is getting stronger. It’s not really about how hard they’re working it, but about letting my body know what’s safe to do. I was in the gym yesterday, taking left-handed shots and layups. I attempted a right-handed shot and it was stiff and fell well short. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sbl5mn-4432","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4432"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4452,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432\/revisions\/4452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}