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Showing posts from March, 2021

Keeping track of improvements

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During the first 10 months it will be easier to track progress. First contractions, start flexing the elbow, start moving the arm and so on. I found that around the 10th month it was harder to track progress, I felt the arm abduction was very similar week after week. And I often found myself thinking the arm improvements slowed down. Eventually I came up with measurements that showed me otherwise: The numbers are time references (10th month and 1 week, and so on). As you can see, there's a weekly improvement on the measurements. This keeps my motivation up for daily rehab exercises. I think finding your motivation is an essential key for the best final result, which can be 2 to 3 years down the road. What I do is, pick up a few movements I can do, and measure how high I get on them against the closet and mark them with a timestamp. There are other ways to measure progress, for example, how high you get while soaping your hair in the shower or how far you get trying to open that tal

Timeline of changes in your body - 12 months after surgery

It's been 1 year from my surgery. And I'm really happy with the progress. I'm back to running since the 10th month. That completes the last sport I used to practice (running, cycling and swimming).  I can eat with my right arm again. All the motions to turn the spoon and so on takes some adjusting, but the movement is there. After so long being a left-handed, it takes some "rewiring" to get used to do some things with the right arm again. Around this time, a measurement is done to find out the transfer efficiency (M2, M3, M4...). I am not sure which 'M' I have at this moment, but this is what I have: For some people, this could be seen as little. To me, this is great. After all the bad expectations I was put upon at the beginning, this feels like a second chance to have a full movement life. This might not be the final result. I've shared my progress with my physicians and they believe I could improve further - if I stick to my current rehab exercises