Val in Real Life LLC

Tag: physical therapy

PT Pep Talk
Yesterday I finished yet another round of injury management. My new doc in Silver City is beginning to understand how seriously I take these recoveries and released me with a figurative gold star and a pat on the back.
This time around I battled a rotator cuff impingement. We don’t really know why it cropped up. It wasn’t a dramatic, sudden injury, just a niggling pain that slowly progressed until eventually I had to acknowledge not only that something was amiss but that it wasn’t getting better on its own. Our best guess as we tried our hand at injury forensics is that my working position and the horrendous ergonomics of my ‘desk’ in the toy hauler allowed the smaller stabilizing muscles in my left shoulder to deteriorate. That set the stage for the bigger muscles to overpower them and pull that complicated joint out of whack in very unpleasant ways.
Anyway, with another notch in my PT belt, I realized I’ve picked up a few things in all of my time managing injuries. Here are a few general tips if you find yourself staring at the business end of a recovery.
I can think of about a million other things I’d rather do than physical therapy. But if I don’t do it, I won’t be able to do those things.
1. Physical therapy sucks: It’s going to hurt. Possibly a lot. You have to remind yourself you’re investing in your future. Push hard now. The alternative is a lifetime of lingering pain and reduced mobility.
2. Do the work: Physical therapy is effective. If you follow the protocols your providers give you, recovery is largely yours for the taking. And a lot of the time, doing the work can help you avoid surgery.
3. Don’t stop short: Every single therapist and doctor I’ve worked with has said they’re amazed by how many patients settle for a limp, or a cane, a partial recovery, or reduced range of motion, etc. It’s up to you to decide what quality of life you want. Don’t settle for less than you’re capable of achieving.
4. Homework counts: Don’t say you’ve been doing your exercises when you haven’t. They know. You aren’t fooling anyone and the only person who pays the price is you.
5. Don’t whine in the PT room: A little grunting through your exercises is unavoidable if you’re truly doing your job but don’t succumb to whining. It happens a lot in my experience. Everyone you share that space with is struggling and they don’t need to carry your noise on top of their own challenges. Whine at home if you must but keep it out of the PT office.
6. PT doesn’t necessarily end when PT ends: Depending on your injury, you may need to do PT maintenance forever. Frankenleg still needs extra attention beyond my normal workouts and exercise. It always will. It’s just the nature of my particular damage. You’ll find a manageable rhythm. Stick with it.
7. Set yourself up for success: Get the tools you need to manage your therapy at home. It doesn’t have to be elaborate but a home setup removes excuses about getting to the gym and keeps you accountable.
8. Personal pep talk: Give yourself a mantra that you can repeat to yourself to get through the hard days. Pair that with a playlist of beast-mode-kicking-ass songs that stoke the “I can do this” fire.
9. Don’t get cocky: You might have a feisty, young therapist. And you might be old enough to be her parent. But if you look her dead in the eye and ask her if that’s all she’s got when crushing your workout like a PT badass, she will leave you in a world of hurt and with a bruised ego. Trust me on this one.
As for the icing on the cake, on top of just finishing yet another round of recovery, it’s also happens to be the anniversary of my weight-bearing day seven years ago when I had to start learning to walk again. So if you’re navigating a recovery, I feel you. And if you need a pep talk, drop me a note. Or at least ask yourself “What would Val do?”
Live large and adventure on, friends. You got this.
No help allowed. Only you can do this.
March 10, 2022
Five Years Later
It’s been five years. It’s awfully surreal. So long ago. But also yesterday.
For better or worse, anniversaries make us pause and reflect, don’t they? I’ve struggled with what to say about where I am with the whole ordeal of the crash, five years in. Or to say anything at all.
I wrote so much early on, partly to help educate others on what it’s like to be a victim of an inattentive driver. But also for my own catharsis. That need is not as intense as time passes and softens the highs and lows, little by little.
But I think it’s important to acknowledge this unfortunate anniversary. And be honest about the path to this point. Because it’s an endless path. It changes, yes. But there simply isn’t an end-point in this journey of living with the fallout from an event like this in my life, both physically and emotionally. It’s a life sentence for someone else’s error.
The pain sucks
I’m fairly accustomed to my “new normal” physically at this point. There’s never a day it doesn’t suck. There’s just sort of a baseline suckage and it goes downhill from there.
Yes, I still do a lot of what I love for the most part. But even on the best days, there’s still pain management. Physical therapy will be with me forever. I can never let my guard down on that or I end up hurting worse.
I’m always aware of the rod in my femur and the clips holding my cobbled-together femoral artery intact. The scars suck and are a constant, unpleasant reminder. One of these days I’ll get some gorgeous tattoo to make something better of them. But I’ve got other things to tend to right now.
And I still slam up against unexpected limitations. In a motorcycle skills class back in September, my leg failed me. Big time. I didn’t see that coming. I’ve worked really damn hard for the last five years to rebuild strength and mobility and have made great progress. But it wasn’t enough to handle the bikes we used there. I spent the day in a spiral of frustration and failure.
Mental cycles
Which brings me to the emotional side of the equation. When I hit those kinds of barriers like I did in class, anger is inevitable along with a host of other emotions.
Most days are fine now, though. The emotional roller coaster is less and less tumultuous with the passing days. But it’s always there. And I never know when I won’t be in charge of how that plays out.
So I remind myself that the process is not linear and I ride the waves.
Keep moving forward
There is a certain hint of melancholy to this anniversary. I imagine there always will be. But in the end, I’m ok in spite of the struggle to get to a good place and stay there. I still do a lot of cool stuff. And I still have wonderful people in my life who love me. I’m still a happy person. And I’ll still keep on doing my thing.
The point I find myself coming around to in this post is a message to you all—be deliberate and kind with your words to the people in your life who are in similar situations. Remember the malleable but permanent nature of these things in our human experience. Honor their struggle. Take care you’re not unintentionally dismissive about the fact that it’s carried with that person every day at some level or another, even years later. There’s no such thing as “back to normal” in these scenarios. There’s just moving forward.
And for crying out loud, all of this is avoidable if we all just pay attention to and take responsibility for the job of driving. There would be so much less suffering and loss in the world. It’s a very simple equation. One we have control over.
Adventure on, friends.

January 25, 2020
Maintaining Momentum
I’m in the home stretch on my latest round of physical therapy and I will be released to self-maintenance very soon. Frankenleg is improving at a glacial pace but that’s how this kind of thing goes. I’ve seen solid improvement in my strength since restarting physical therapy about six months ago. It’s most noticeable when getting the bike off the side stand, especially at an awkward camber—something that I’ve struggled with since the 2015 crash.
But the best improvement is less pain on a daily basis, which was the goal from the start. That progress is a challenge to measure. I have to pay attention to the absence of pain. That may seem obvious but it isn’t. It’s easy to notice when you’re hurting. Noticing that a chronic pain has gradually and grudgingly faded is more difficult. But I realized after some recent moderately strenuous hikes that the pain I would normally have had, both during and after, wasn’t there. Or at least was so minimal that it was just a footnote.
These hikes are a far cry from what I used to do without much trouble. Regaining prowess at that level may not go as well. But this IS progress. Progress that’s so slow it’s nearly imperceptible. Over three years into this, I’m well beyond the obvious day-to-day or week-to-week improvements. I’m even beyond month-to-month gains. This is the long haul—that portion of physical recovery that takes months of consistent hard work to see minute gains. It’s the doldrums. It’s tough to keep going when it doesn’t seem like all of the time and effort is delivering results.
I’ve spent countless hours diligently doing my PT exercises at my appointments, at home, and on the road. I have a small arsenal of PT torture devices at home. I take my smaller, portable gear with me on every trip and cram in some time to get the work done. I’ve used concrete curbs on the street as makeshift platforms for some of the exercises I do. Sometimes while wearing full motorcycle gear. That’s the logistical part, though.
The mental part is powering through even when it seems like a waste of time. It’s powering through when I have to summon every ounce of discipline I possess to overcome a lack of desire. It’s powering through when anger surges about why I’m still doing this. It’s powering through when the exhausting realization washes over me yet again that I will have to spend extra energy and focus the rest of my life to keep Frankenleg mostly functional. Because I can feel the strength in my leg deteriorate in just a couple of days, if I don’t tend to it. The difference between my injured leg and my good leg is astounding. I can never let my guard down if I want to keep doing the things I love because those things require this fucking leg to work fairly well.
But if I can avoid additional surgery, doing the work is a no-brainer. And I know that I have some measure of control about how this goes. As much as the process sucks, I have a choice in how this plays out in my life.
I’m not tooting my own horn about this hard-earned success. I’m writing this to encourage anyone who’s facing a similar situation to keep going. Pure and simple, it sucks. No way around that. Time seems to stand still some days when you’re muddling through exercises for the millionth time. But you have to envision the long play. A really, really long play with no true finish line because you’re doing it to keep living the life you want more than anything else in the world. Do the work and make sure you enjoy the ride along the way.
Adventure on, friends!
Physical therapy in full moto gear? Yep.

April 11, 2018
Investment
If you’ve followed Val in Real Life over the last few years, you know I gave my recovery from the 2015 crash every ounce of energy and determination I possess. Even though I knew my body would never be the same, I refused to settle for anything less than the best possible outcome of a bad situation. My physicians have been nothing short of astonished at what I was able to achieve, given my injuries.
Now, almost three years later though, I’m facing another round of poking and prodding of “Frankenleg.” Long story short, I’m back in physical therapy. Everything I gave the first time around wasn’t enough. While everything about that leg still hurts—the nerve damage, the scar tissue, the rigidness of my rod-laden femur, the tibial hernia, the semi-locked ankle, the swelling—I’ve mostly learned how to manage it. I’ve had to accept it will never be fabulous and learn how to manage the symptoms.
But I haven’t gotten my knee pain or function to acceptable levels. The patellar tendon that was assaulted to insert the rod and the soft tissue of my knee that was sliced to repair my femoral artery are still quite troublesome. So it’s back to the drawing board to dig in and find out what’s going on and if it can be improved. Non-intrusive physical therapy is the precursor to making a surgery decision about removing some potentially offending hardware. There may be no relief to be had but I’ve got to try.
Going back to doctors and therapists is not setting well with my psyche. But it’s what I need to do. It’s taking me some time to come to terms with it. That I’m going through yet another round of this because of one person’s negligence has me going through renewed waves of intense emotions. Part of that struggle is the physical strain and hassle of it all.
I also have to alter my life. Again. That means scaling back travel plans to accommodate a multitude of appointments. My head knows that throttling back temporarily is an investment in preserving my ability to continue my lifestyle. My heart is not as accepting of that.
Could I just keep plowing through? Sure. Either route I take is a gamble. Right now I’m opting to see what I can improve while still relatively young and healthy. Postponing wouldn’t give me a chance to live and travel with less pain today. Putting it off also means I run the risk of inadvertently cutting my life of adventures short because I didn’t want to face a short-term setback now.
So my mantra for the next few months is “This is an investment.” Like any investment, there’s no guarantee it will pay off. I can guarantee you I will give it my all. Again.
Investing in my body now so I can ensure the longevity of my adventures.

November 10, 2017
Finding Fierce
I’ve talked before about finding what you’re made of. Until now, the challenges I’ve faced have largely been of my choosing. This time though, external forces have forced me to explore greater depths of myself and the limits of my tenacity.
I’m now almost eight weeks into this ordeal and I’m certainly much improved but each day and week present new and different challenges. It’s been a grudging, gradual process to regain independence and mobility. Around two weeks I started to realize I’d be ok eventually. By four weeks I started to feel more like myself, like I was regaining my spirit. At six weeks it was time to start trying to walk again and I had more control of my progress.
Even though in the big picture there’s a clear progression, to me living it from day-to-day, it’s been tenuous and non-linear… fleeting moments that I wasn’t sure I could turn into anything sustainable. It has been difficult and frustratingly slow journey. To be broken down to your core, having to dig in and start over, and counting progress with miniscule victories is humbling. Trust me, the joy of finally being able to bathe yourself without help is exciting—but contrasted with why you had to be in that position in the first place is an emotional struggle.
Now at almost eight weeks, recovery is entirely up to me. Only I can be diligent about my physical therapy. Only I can push past the pain. No one else can do for me what needs to be done to get back to my life. To succeed, I have to find my fierce—the part of me that won’t give up, the part of me that is angry, the part of me that won’t settle for anything less than a full recovery, the part of me that gives this whole situation two vigorous, defiant middle fingers and gets back on the motorcycle and back to being who I am.
That means focusing on the progress. Celebrating the exceptional moments even though the rule is still struggling with daily tasks—trusting that the balance will shift if I work hard enough, if I find how fierce I can be.
And so I leave you with this…
Because I need this. I ache for it. It is what I am and only I can get me back to it. And it’s going to take everything I have to reclaim it. I have to be fierce.
March 20, 2015