It has been a few weeks, ok, several months, that I have been on the road to recovery following my shoulder surgery. Today at my physio session I was told that things are going pretty well, so the next few sessions will move to the “readaptation” phase. In other words, time to get back to work.

It is feeling natural again to use my left arm in everyday tasks, like preparing breakfast or taking a shower. For a long time this wasn’t the case, as I always favored the right side and was protective of the left, making sure that I wasn’t straining it or trying to stretch too far. But lately, like in the last week, this has changed. It has become natural to use my left arm again and stretching it almost to the same point as that of the right is now a reality.

I went for a long bike ride yesterday, about 5 hours into the hills in the high heat. When I returned, my whole body was sore – but my left arm/shoulder was sore in the same manner as my right, I could tell no difference. Yeah! I can now beat myself up equally on both the left and right sides!

Moving forward I’ll slowly start doing gym work and continue to extend the stretching ability of my arm/shoulder. I’ll also start doing things on both sides to return some symmetry to both sides, ensuring that when I eventually try to swim again that things are as balanced as possible. Hopefully that is sooner rather than later.