It’s now five months since the anthroscopic (keyhole) anterior stabilisation of my right shoulder – brought on by four dislocations over the previous couple of years.  Since my last update, I’ve continued with a variety of progressing exercises & stretches set by the physio.  Progress along the way has been mostly gradual with not too many obvious signs, but every so often I’d push my shoulder in some direction just a little bit further than I was used to & suddenly realise that there is more movement there than I thought.

I had one such moment a couple of days ago when it struck me that I could now lift my arm out away from my body (but in the same plane), with my palm facing down (much more difficult than palm up) & it would go all the way up & touch my ear.  Bloody brilliant, as that was the most restrictive movement.  When the physio saw that today, she was well pleased – she sent me out the door with a theraband with a bit more resistance & told me she didn’t want to see me again.  Fantastic – so after five months I have a much more stable shoulder & I can now start taking small steps (pedal strokes) in getting back to mountain-biking.  Hoorah!

The first six weeks post-surgery was of course the worse, being in a sling & not being able to drive.  The biggest hassle I found was not being able to cook as it meant I had to have ready-meals & they aren’t the best for the palate or the body.  Also, not being able to exercise harder than a brisk walk meant I wasn’t burning enough energy & therefore, not sleeping so well.  But once that sling was off, things got much better & I haven’t really missed the mountain-biking as much as I thought I would (mostly due to the poor weather this summer) and have managed four trips overseas, plenty of other weekends away in Britain and got to a better level of fitness at the gym & running in the New Forest (even if that has been pretty boring).

So definitely no regrets so far in taking the surgery route to fixing my shoulder.