Surgery & Rehabilitation

Through the reckoning of an injury, it’s always important to remember how far you’ve come since the first day. Even though you’re depressed from the inability to move freely, it’s important to keep training, just intelligently. Once the arduous process of recovery is completed, with consistency, it won’t take long to get back to where you were before and possibly surpass your “previous best.” Currently, I have a couple of athletes recovering from traumatic injuries and they won’t be able to compete in next week’s 2021 North American Open Series in Albuquerque, NM. All their injuries were attained outside of training and none are related in any way, but they’re sidelined for the time being, not forever. I remind them that their current state is not their permanent state. This is why I bring back this blog post: it’s a reminder to me that even through my own setbacks, I’m still not in a permanent mode.

Originally published on May 28, 2014 from my now expired personal blog:

This is a very overdue blog post that I should have posted long time ago. With a surgery, recovering and starting another semester of school, there is now little time to write anything worthwhile, let alone having time to have my own thoughts.

My surgery was on January 2, 2014. It was an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion at six-seven at Sunset Kaiser. What a great way to start off the year.  I was admitted at 12:00 pm. After all the pre-op was finished, I entered the operation room at 1 pm. I was in surgery for four hours and was induced longer post-op under anesthesia. When I woke, it was 6pm. I was my mother and father first in the post-op recovery room at approximately 7:30pm. The nurses didn’t allow the remainder of my family to see me until I was transferred up to the recovery room. I was given morphine for little under two days. And was discharged on January 5, 2014. The drive back home was the worst ever. Even the slightest bump or twist in the car’s suspension made my neck feel a sharp pain. Even my surgeries with regards to my legs and arms weren’t as painful.

It’s May 28th today and although I have tightness in my upper and mid traps, I feel perfectly fine. On May 21st, I had my second follow up with my doctor. He said to stay off the weights and not to lift over 5 lbs. Oops. I’ve been squatting over 95 lbs and deadlifting about 100 lbs frequently trying not to lose muscle size. Granted, I don’t have the same strength and muscle mass I did prior to my injury, but that has been close to a year now. I’ve lost all my strength and size since June 1, 2013. I have first physical therapy appointment set at June 12, 2014. Hope all goes well.

I really miss throwing barbells around especially when I’m around it so frequently.