Yin and Yang

As I've said countless times in my past blog posts...in the case of injury rehabilitation- it's the little things that matter. For me, both ends of the spectrum have occurred in the past few days- the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Saturday morning met me with an incredible combination of soreness and swelling. I had a fairly typical physical therapy session the day before, and took all the regular precautionary measures that I had become accustomed to in order to ensure that my arm would recover accordingly. I spent Friday night in my room writing an essay for class and didn't go out to a party or a bar, and got a great night sleep. Yet for whatever reason, upon awakening, my arm was all blown up yet again.

I hadn't seen my arm look like that since I had been in my brace. It had been sore before...plenty worse than it was on Saturday...but never that swollen. I tried moving it around a little bit, figuring that maybe some motion would cause the blood to start flowing back through the arm and decrease the swelling, but that was unsuccessful. I tried massaging out the swollen area, but that didn't help either. It was still puffy and it still ached.

I made my way up to campus to consult with the training staff about this situation. I made it a point not to be too freaked out about it being that last time I barged into the training room with a concern I had a simple suture coming out of my arm...and was the butt of a few hearty jokes. I got out of the car, calmly collected myself, and waltzed into the office.

Once I went over everything I had been feeling and the trainer went through a fairly thorough evaluation, it was determined that I probably just slept on the arm the wrong way. They slapped some ice on it and basically told me that time would heal the swelling. I was fairly receptive of this information, largely due to the fact that I still had full range of motion and capabilities with the arm. I figured that something odd could have possibly happened, and that seemed to be the case exactly.

Lo and behold, the trainers were right. By Saturday night, the swelling and tenderness had pretty much fully diminished. Everything else was, at the point, an afterthought. I went about my business Saturday night and into Sunday afternoon with no reserves, enjoying a social life with my friends and enjoying sleeping in late in the morning (yes, I am still in college and don't do well in the morning). I woke up Sunday morning refreshed, made myself some lunch, and sat down to watch football with my roommates. I joked with them all day, hung out enjoying the beautiful weather outside, and relaxed throughout the majority of the day. Once football was done, I retreated back to my room to finish up my homework assignments for the weekend. I swiftly completed these, and got myself ready for bed. It was getting late and after all, I had another physical therapy session Monday morning.

I set my alarm and dozed off to sleep. I am normally a pretty heavy sleeper...I may roll around in bed and wake up to go to the bathroom every once in a blue moon. At around 3 AM Monday morning, I woke up to a splitting headache. I was dizzy and my stomach was in knots. I jumped out of bed, ran to the bathroom, and got sick...twice. I went back to bed and crawled under the covers, shivering in a cold sweat. My head continued to spin and my body started aching. About ten minutes later, I got sick again.

This routine continued until about 4:30, when I was pretty sure I needed to determine the fate of the rest of my day. I called the training room and left a message, explaining what was going on and that I probably would not be able to make it into rehab a few hours after that. I tried to make a mental schedule of my day to see if there was any way I could finagle my way out of any other responsibilities. Then, I got sick again.

I slept most of the day away on Monday, negating most of the responsibilities I had for the day (I didn't have any classes scheduled but did have a meeting and fall practice, both of which I missed). I had a full blown flu, with a fever and shakes and a vicious stomach bug. I was deliriously miserable, weak and ill.

Upon awakening Tuesday morning, I'd regained much of the strength I lost the day before. I still ached a bit (most likely from the act of getting sick) but my stomach felt much better. I attended all my classes throughout the day and a meeting at night. I occupied myself with classes and assignments and meetings and socializing. I was weak and tired, but I could manage.

I got home at night and completed a little bit of busy work I had for class and went to bed early. I knew I needed to have a good night sleep if I was going to attend physical therapy on Wednesday with full health. I hit the sack with ample time to rest, and made sure that everything was in order to optimize my sleep. When I woke up this morning, I felt great. My stomach was pretty much completely fine, my muscles were feeling better and I had caught up on some much needed sleep. I arrived at physical therapy eager to begin the day, and started on the exercises laid out for me.

And I struggled. A lot.

The trainer and I both agreed that I should take it a bit easy today being that I'd been sick and I was probably still weak. I completed all of the exercises at hand at a very slow pace and didn't overexert myself in any way. In relative terms to what I'd been going through in the last few days, PT overall was a success. Yet still, it was incredibly frustrating. I hadn't attended physical therapy on Monday and couldn't completely get through all of my exercises on Wednesday. It's been almost a week since I got a "real" session in, and deviating from routine is difficult at this stage. I understood that there is nothing anyone can do to control what happened, but I still feel rather hindered.

Then, I received a piece of news that rocked my world a bit. I began reading the protocol given to me by Dr. Andrews and saw that on week 12 I could "begin swimming and hitting a baseball." I quickly turned to the trainer and asked if I could hit. After getting the customary "you're a pitcher" response, I explained that I know I don't hit in games but I would love to be able to just take a few swings and be able to get back into the feel for the game. I was greeted with a calm confirmation, solidifying my feeling of contentment with the news.

I grabbed a buddy of mine and drove to the baseball field, where I would grab a bat and a bucket of balls and head to the batting cages beyond the left field fence. My friend would throw batting practice to me, ever so lightly, and I would haplessly swing at the balls being thrown my way. I'd pop some of them up, hit some of them into the ground, and square some up for a line drive. The results of the BP mattered to me about as much as the color of a couch matters to a blind person. What mattered was this: I was swinging a baseball bat and hitting baseballs, and it didn't hurt. In fact, it didn't feel any different than it ever felt in the past...despite the fact that my last at-bat was in the state tournament in high school. I was participating, playing baseball, for the first time since surgery. It was a feeling so invigorating for me that I can't describe it. I felt as though that bat belonged in my hand, that I belonged in that batting cage. I felt comfortable. I felt great.