Dot`sThoughts

Another day of therapy and more new exercises to do. I am still using the rope and pulley contraption hanging in my laundry room archway. So the therapist was surprised with the range of motion I was already getting back. I am also still using the broom handle for sideward motions so that is improving. So, after seeing me do both those exercises he decided to move me on to more workouts. First was the huge workout ball. He had me standing up and putting both hands onto the ball and first rolling it forward across the highered bed till it touched the wall and then rolling it backwards towards me, forward and backwards for about 10 minutes. Next was both hands on the top of the workout ball and rolling it sideways back and forth for another 10 minutes to straighten and help rebuild some of the muscles.
Next came the machine with a handle on each side to hang onto while moving them around and around in a circle in front of me. This is a machine you sit on with your hands on the handles in front of you. Only the handle mechanism moves as you peddle with your hands. This is to help give me more range of movement plus work to rebuild the muscles. It`s like putting your bicycle upside down and spinning the pedals around and around.

Sure brings back more memories.
This reminded me of when my 2 youngest kids were small. My youngest son , about 8 or 9 at the time, had his first 20 inch bicycle and the chain had come off. So he turned the bike upside down onto the handle bars and seat. Then he was trying to do what he had seen his older bros do. He was starting the chain onto the teeth in the sprocket and spinning the peddals with his hands to run the chain back onto the sprocket. His sister is 5 1/2 years younger than him- about 3 at the time. From what he told me, she was watching him spinning the peddals which was making the back wheel spin real fast. He had to keep doing it till eventually the chain caught and was back running on both the wheel hub and the pedal sprocket. He told me his sister was just standing there watching him when all of a sudden she reached out her hand and caught her little fingernail in the chain as it went around the sprocket and thats when I heard her scream. Of course I didn`t know about his chain coming off till then. I went running outside to see what happened. Her poor little finger - the chain had pulled the fingernail completely off her finger. I brought her in and stuck her finger under cold water to numb the pain. Thank goodness she was still so young that the fingernail grew back, but of course her finger was very sensitive till the nail had time to grow all the way to the end of her finger. It left no lasting defects and the nail continued to grow normally afterwards. Today she is a prison guard, a mom to two daughters : one grown up -- 20 yrs old and one just 2 1/2 years old), plus a grandmother to one granddaughter. Like all my children, she is a hard worker.

To get back to the Therapy, I do the exercises at home tomorrow and back to the therapist on Wed.. I go every Mon, Wed and Fri. for therapy.

I have much more on my mind right now than my bum arm. One of my older bros is having his leg removed above the knee on Fri. 8th. He has had ostiomilitis (bone cancer) since he was about 13/14 yrs old. Over the years the ostio has been eating away at the leg bones till they are splintering and breaking now and there is nothing more they can do but remove it. He just celebrated his 79th Birthday about a week ago. So, Please say some prayers for him. He has gone thru cancer treatments and the thiroid gland removal, kidney stones so bad they needed the op room to break them up, his throat shrunk from the chemo so he has trouble eating and swollowing, plus other problems. So, he can use all the help that Prayers can bring. Thank you.