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Slow Healing
Back in June I hurt myself running a couple of times within a three week span. The first time, my dogs ran up to a fence to bark at a dog that was barking at them. I turned to look at them and pull in their leashes, and managed to clip a fire hydrant with my right leg. Sent me flying, and the leashes out of my hand, and knocked the wind out of me. I managed to get up in a couple of seconds, frantically looking for the dogs, who thankfully were just over at the fence, barking at the other dog.
A big, deep bruise on my leg. This healed quickly enough: it was ugly, and it hurt, but it slowly went away.
Then, a few weeks later, I fell again. Bizarrely, not even a hundred feet from where I was before. This time there wasn't even a distraction: I just misstepped on the sidewalk and went forward into the pavement.
I caught myself a bit with my left wrist, which I hurt; scraped my knee, and my hand, and bashed my right shoulder. And now for the last few months it's been the slow process of healing.
At first it was so bad I couldn't even raise my right arm out to shoulder height. Shooting pains when I tried. I couldn't hold my hands behind my back - any sort of twisting caused a lot of pain. I kept an eye on this, and day by day, it got a little (just a little) bit better.
It's now been around three months. It's still not perfect, but it's a lot better. I can raise my arms with no problem. I can hold my hands behind my back. But I'm sort of always trying things with my left arm, seeing what motions I can do that still hurt with my right.
Right now, if I hold my arms above my head, my right arm feels tight. It doesn't _hurt_, per se, I can just tell it's not 100%. I've tried some light weights (5-10 lbs overhead, 20 lb curls) and these are fine. It's getting there. It's just -
It's hard because this is the first time I've had an actual injury in a long time. I've been running for decades, and I've had very few physical issues. Some knee inflammation about twenty years ago, and a few very long runs where I developed soreness and couldn't maintain my pace, but that's about it. Never had the dreaded shin splints. I'm pretty careful about taking off days between runs, for both me and the dogs (one of which is older).
But now I'm sort of wondering when this ends - I've been to a doctor, who tried some exercises with my arm, determined nothing was torn, and basically told me it could take a while to heal, giving me a topical anti-inflammatory, which I've almost used up. And honestly, it's not a huge deal. I don't have a physical job. I have a long-distance run upcoming, but, it's my shoulder. I just want to get back to normal, where I can do my weights before work and everything feels good. It's just strange not knowing when that's going to be. I hope it's soon.