Hi, Stephen, and group...

"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message
...
Skip Gundlach wrote:

My preference is to wait until, say, September, and get a good long
rehab
before making the boat as perfect as we can, and heading out November
05.
That would also get us past the requirement to come back from wherever
we
were to see her son graduate in December :{))

Good long rehab sounds good. How long it needs to be depends greatly
upon how much you will be required to use it and when. This depends I
guess, on your style of boating and your crew's/wife's strength. For
example if you will not be required to use the shoulder heavily *at all*
you could easily bring along an exercise device or two and continue the
latter half of the rehab during your travels.

Our style is very active. Noting, of course, that this year and the two
before, I was without full use of my shoulder... However, this year, during
our shakedown cruise, we were fortunate enough to be offered some heavy
weather - nothing really threatening, but very lumpy and windy, to which we
eagerly looked forward. The good news is we had a blast. However... My
attempts to get something to hang on to while in the bouncing dink off the
stern, pending the manual letdown of the 15HP, for which I'd want my good
hand free, was a wake-up call to the complacency which had developed.
Meanwhile, I've been wanting to go back for a couple of years, but had to
wait for the pre-existing condition period to elapse for insurance purposes,
so have had a long time to consider this. Unfortunately for my planning, it
never occurred to me that the first operation might have simply failed
altogether. I got complacent about thinking how long I'd be in rehab,
expecting either that I'd not have any hope ("sorry, nerve damage, can't fix
it") or something simple ("yeah, you've got some adhesion there, we'll slice
it off so it moves again and off you go to rehab").


The primary two keys to rehab a

1)Protection from excess forces (which should first be very great and
*gradually* decrease as healing occurs

2)Introduction of movement and force (which should start off very light
and *gradually* increase as healing/strengthening occurs).

Failure in the correct starting point and gradual progress of either of
these are pretty much the only causes of rehab failure. Often one
mistake is all it takes, but if you can avoid that one mistake you can
rehab pretty much anywhere.

Word is, now, having heard back from them, it's a couple of weeks of just
motion exercises, and if that is successful, then 4 more weeks of increasing
that to the point where I'm then sent off to rehab, without having to have
the arm restricted. Expect 6 months for comfortable use, and improvement as
far out as 18 months. I don't know how or why the first one failed.
Certainly, I didn't experience any pain that I could associate with it. The
operative report suggested that the bone wasn't hard enough to use the screw
anchors they'd originally expected, and so did drill holes and sutures.
Whether those failed, or the attachment never took, or the tendon tore at
the stitch, I don't know. However, I'm going to be pretty aggressive about
my rehab and following the recommendations of the surgeon. If he can bring
major leaguers back from pitching injuries, I figure I can get it happening,
too. However, there's still only a tossup chance that I'll have
improvement. I'll just have to make sure that I don't do anything to
jeopardize the chances...

Thanks for the input...

L8R

Skip

--

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a
clear night, and gaze at the countless stars overhead, and realize
that you are quite alone on a great, wide sea, it is apt to occur to
you that in the general scheme of things you are merely an
insignificant speck on the surface of the ocean; and are not nearly
so important or as self-sufficient as you thought you were. Which is
an exceedingly wholesome thought, and one that may effect a
permanent change in your deportment that will be greatly appreciated
by your friends." - James S. Pitkin