There's HOPE for my shoulder!!

Making healthy eating choices, going to the gym and running regularly- since my last post I've been doing pretty good. I think the key to anything is balance and I'm proud of the progress I have made. This shoulder injury has been a sobering, unmotivating and depressing obstacle. My shoulder hurt for the first time on April 4, 2011.

A few weeks ago, Reg and I met a chiropractor from the San Diego Running Institute in hopes of addressing a foot issue he's been having as we train for our first half-marathon. I decided to see what he might be able to do for my shoulder, I had no idea this guy treats people for more than foot/knee issues. Finding him was a pure accident.

Today was my first appointment. He diagnosed me the same as other doctors- an impingement in my supraspinatus shoulder muscle. When I shared with him that during two months of physical therapy. I'd been given shoulder exercises with some light massage, he explained that the injury wasn't actually being treated and it ended up healing ugly, with lots of scar tissue.

 So, with hopes high, I will be spending the next three weeks, twice per week, going in for some treatments from this chiropractor with a background in sports medicine.  Already, the treatment felt wonderful, while hurting in a "good way" (it felt like he was actually doing something!).

I was pretty sad the other day when someone who has known me for awhile told me he thought I was lifting lighter weights because I didn't want to go heavy. Like the light weight suits me, after all I'm  not the fastest person at our gym. Asthma is always there to slap me around when I think I might try to do something as fast as the others. Starting off overweight at a gym like CrossFit involves letting go of some ego, this injury has continued to test my ego and pride time and time again. Every day I remind myself of my purpose when I walk through the gym doors, it's about ME, it's about what I can do, and what others think about that isn't my concern. But in a program that involves so much community, what others think can be hard to ignore.

So, here's to high hopes! And if this doesn't work, I am going to continue to search for a long-term solution.