Today marks 1 week post surgery, and I am now amazed at the body's ability to heal. I could literally go without the sling at this point...I slept without it last night, then took it off for 2 hours during work, and now am sitting on the couch without the sling on, and plan on not wearing it until I head off to work tomorrow---and all this with no pain, no arm sag, and no increase in the pressure in my shoulder from the sling not "slinging" my arms weight. My forearm is is sick of lying in that tight wrap to the point that the skin is getting a little irritated...it just needs to breathe! I also noticed that the more I sat around doing nothing after day 5 post surgery, the longer it was going to take to feel better, because once I got active again, I saw rapid improvement in my recovery, energy level, and mentally as well. All the same though, my arm is dead weight and doesn't move from it's "L" shaped position across my abdomen.
So at this point, traveling to SF only 14 days post-surgery is a go for sure. The day before we leave I have my post op appointment, and hopefully we'll be talking about starting rehab, to include bike trainer workouts and possibly even some time in the pool doing creative swim workouts...but I'll hold my breathe until it's a go from Doc, and not get ahead of myself.
Luckily, I'm "keeping the fire alive" by "coaching" (sounds so official) our Team's track workouts on wednesdays. We have some really great guys that are very much like me, with at least 4 of them set to do Ironman Arizona in November. At least getting to hang out while they run is motivating me to keep me focused on the goal I set in November 2009. With the race a little over 200 days away, I have made a decision that I have to look at the race one of two ways: either I am competing for time, or I consider it to be a very long workout session not focused on my time at all---"all or none", except calling it a training day is not "none" by any means.
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