On August 21, 2014 I went for Physical Therapy for the first time for my shoulder. My PT is Stephen Sheridan from North Shore Physical Therapy.
After going over the injury and what happened, we discussed what I was doing right now. It was at that point he said I should put the sling back on for at least another week. When I had left the Orthopedic I was under the impression that I didn’t need to be in the sling anymore. That may have been an assumption on my part, but when the Dr. tells you that you can go run or ride your bike you kind of assume that you don’t need the sling anymore.
So, I have the sling back for this week. Steve also gave me a few exercises to do. Pretty much just to keep range of motion, as he still wants to let the healing process continue.
After leaving PT I felt like I still had a lot of questions in my head. Back to the what would be going on if I was Tom Brady? Would I have had surgery? This kind of set me off on a quest to find answers on the internet. Kelly found a lot of information from people who have had similar injuries on slowtwich.com forums. Not surprisingly they were mostly people that did not have surgery and seemed to rehab themselves. Not exactly what I was looking for.
I did a search on Dr. James Andrews, after all, every Pro sports athlete that has had an injury has seen him. Turns out that he has seen a few Pro football QBs that have had this injury and his advice to them was no surgery, at least not until you have given Physical Therapy a chance to work.
This finally put my mind at ease. I just needed to know that I wasn’t being treated like some guy on the couch eating potato chips and drinking beer and that I would still be able to do those things. That to me, was not going to fly. I needed to know that I would be returning to at or close to what I was before the injury occurred. I finally feel like that is the course I’m on.
I will say that I’m not happy with having this bump on my shoulder. I’m surprised that with the technology that we have today the best you can get from a shoulder separation is a Clavicle that sticks up in the air unless you opt for surgery that doesn’t always seem to work….