All of my life, Ive felt like whatever goals I set out to accomplish, or whatever obstacles I had to overcome, I could do it. Id just make up my mind & work, work, work on it, until I finally did it. & every time ... I did it! The more I accomplished, the more confident I became that I could do anything I set my mind to do. Some things have seemed daunting ... but, nothing seemed impossible ... until now ... Thanks to the insurance company, I had an extremely long wait between breaking my neck & neurosurgery to repair it. The nerves were impinged & I gradually lost the use of my left arm. Now, I have no strength & coordination in my left tricep, & 3 fingers on my left hand. I went to physical therapy today for evaluation. I was in excellent shape before the accident. Ive been laying around for 6 months, 1st waiting to have surgery & then recovering from surgery. The physical therapist evaluated the strength in my hands & arms. The grip in my right hand measured 60 lbs, left hand < 5 lbs. Then the pinch test: right hand: 16 lbs, left hand: < 3 lbs. Then she handed me a Digi-flex to squeeze, which has 1.5 lbs resistance. On my left hand, I could only squeeze it with my index finger. I could not make it move at all with my middle, ring, or pinkie fingers. After the evaluation, she showed me some exercises to do, some using a 1 lb. weight, some using isometrics (resistance). Just using 1 lb. my arm & hand shook like crazy & my muscles cramped up. There is no way to know how much strength & coordination I will regain until I am re-evaluated in several weeks ... or if I will ever regain it all. I feel like I have a mountain to climb & this time I just dont know if I can do it. This is so unbelievably hard. After therapy, I was so exhausted I came home & took a 3 hr nap & Ive had ice packs on my neck & arm ever since to stop the pain & muscle cramps.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 03:32:14 +0000
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