It’s been four weeks today since the crash and my shoulder is making real progress. I am spending most of my time out of the sling, even slept last night without it on. I’m no longer taking any pain medication and I’m sleeping fairly well now.

I can lift my arm to the side up to the level of my shoulder without pain, and not quite that far to the front. I’m still getting used to the big bump on top where my collar bone sticks up. Even with surgery I would still have this bump.

I have to confess, I’m pretty upset to have my shoulder disfigured. I’ve been a weightlifter for about 16 years now (yikes!) and have lifted some damn heavy weights to get these shoulders to be strong. They’re going to be strong again, but the right one is always going to look whacked. Oh well, at least I have a good story!

What am I doing to stay in shape so Dave doesn’t whup-up on me on our next tour? I’m hiking every other day or so, and on the days I don’t I head to the gym to do an hour of hard intervals on the stationary bike, a couple rounds on the indoor track of walking lunges, and such things as I can do without using my bad shoulder. That’s pretty darn limiting. I can see the free weight area from where I sit on the bike. I see all the things I can’t do right now: pull ups, bench press, military press, squats and such. All require two working shoulders. But I’ll have both back in action soon, though when they are it’s time to take off on a new adventure.