Final Shoulder Update

It's been exactly a year and a day since my Bankart repair surgery, so I thought I should write one more update about the experience.

Last week, I had my final physical therapy session with Brianne. Passively (that is, lying on my back with Brianne rotating my shoulder), I have a full 90 degrees of external rotation now. Compared with a couple months ago, the motion is really smooth and easy now, with only very slight stretchiness at the end range. Actively (that is, rotating my shoulder on my own strength), I still have some work to do. I'm not quite strong enough to get to 90 degrees, so Brianne said I should continue to do internal and external exercises with the therabands.

I also have "full range" of motion raising my arm overhead and reaching up behind my back.  The "full range" is less than I can do with my left shoulder, but Brianne tells me that my left shoulder hyperextends, and that the range I'm now achieving with my right shoulder is what normal people should be able to do.

As I wrote in previous posts, I'm back to playing tennis now, although I'm not hitting many serves yet. Groundstrokes and volleys feel good, although one-handed backhand volleys are very weak still. Most of all, I'm encouraged that my arm really feels back to normal now, except for needing to build a little more strength, which I'm sure will happen over time.

Now that I've been through it all, here's my most important tip for anyone who's doing rehab for a Bankart repair surgery:

Good posture is important when doing exercises. Everyone wants to get to their range-of-motion goal as quickly as possible, and the body is very good at finding ways to "cheat" so it seems like you're getting the range. Try to start in a relaxed natural position, and be careful that all the motion is coming from rotating your rotator cuff. Nothing else should move (e.g. your shoulder blade or back). Basically, your whole body should stay very quiet. Learning to "embrace the pain" instead of avoiding the pain (e.g. using other muscles to compensate) is key to doing the exercises correctly.

The other important point, obviously, is to do the exercises regularly, which I was never very good at!

History-Infused Vacation

Son of the American Revolution

For the past couple of weeks, Chris and I have been relaxing at his parents' house in Maryland. While chatting with Great Uncle Ray one cozy evening, I learned something pretty cool. He (and by extension, Chris) is a descendant of the Wing Family, which according to the records, arrived at Massachusetts Bay Colony on June 5, 1632. The Wing Family House, which Stephen Wing purchased in 1646, is "the oldest house in New England owned and occupied continuously by the same family for over three centuries."

American history is fascinating stuff, but I never particularly considered it MY history, since my parents are such recent immigrants. So the fact that my kids will actually be Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution seems seriously crazy cool to me. If we make it to the Harvard 5th Reunion, I'd love to go look at the house. There's even a Wing Family Reunion in Oregon this summer, which is potentially convenient because Jessica lives in Portland now.

We also celebrated Uncle Ray and Aunt Bert's 50th anniversary on December 27. Fifty years is a long time. We learned that as of the 2002 census, only "5 percent of [currently married couples] had reached at least their golden anniversary (50 years)". Congratulations again to them -- our 2.5 years certainly seems wimpy by comparison!

National Museum of Natural History

A couple days ago, we ventured into DC to see the Museum of Natural History. They had an impressive Ocean Hall with fossils and skeletons of various ocean creatures. By sheer crowd size, I would say that the fish tank with the "Nemo and Dory fish" was the most popular exhibit, which is sad because even SFO has one of those, haha.

Before we went to the museum, I had just explained to everyone why I think museums are somewhat useless as a learning tool, because they basically go for pure "wow" factor, and kids end up with a bunch of dead facts, instead of an understanding about what science actually is -- the process of asking questions and discovering/creating brand new knowledge about the world around us.

Of course, I also conceded that maybe I went to museums in the wrong frame of mind for all those school field trips, so this visit, I tried really hard to learn something at the museum. Between the two of us, we remembered two meaningful things:

• Whales didn't evolve straight from fish. They're mammals (most closely related to hippos), so they started out on land and went back into the ocean.
• About 2.x billions years ago, the Great Oxidation Event happened and plants suddenly started to do photosynthesis, which started pumping oxygen into our atmosphere (which was then full of methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen).

I suppose we also learned something about the history of the Hope Diamond, but I don't really count that as science.

So it was a nice afternoon of ooo-ing and ahh-ing, but I found it surprisingly and frustratingly unengaging, despite knowing that a lot of the subjects covered in the museum (geology, space, evolution, zoology) are amazing and fascinating when one studies them in more depth. But then again, maybe I'm just weird that way.

Historic Moment...Three Weeks Early

Speaking of hope, after we finished with the museum, we took a stroll (okay a miserable, freezing, hurried jog-walk) through the National Mall, so we could try to imagine what the Obama's inauguration might look like in a few weeks.

Apparently it's going to be so crazy that Chris's parents think they can sublet some of the rooms in their house for $3000-4000!

Miscellaneous Fun with the Family

Inspired by Jen Jen's fantastic Thanksgiving feast, Chris and I made several batches of yummy yummy sangria (which Jenn had way too much of, which made for an entirely loopy game of Taboo with the family).

At Grammy and Grampy's house, we learned how to play a game called Crokinole. Grampy totally schooled us all.

Lastly, Andrew bought the first season of Battlestar Galactica for Chris's Christmas present. We are completely and totally addicted. I think I've found a new favorite TV show to replace The Office.

That's it for now. Happy 2009 to everyone! Our official New Year's Resolution this year is to "have more fun" so hopefully we'll see more of our friends and family soon!

P.S. More pictures if you're interested:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jenn.c.taylor/MarylandHolidays2008