Grumbly Week

It’s been a week since I was released from Physical Therapy. It hasn’t been my favorite week. Surgery and recovery is expensive, no doubt. But I started getting extra bills from PT that my insurance refused to pay. Never a fun thing. Requested details, and I can’t say I think the charges are accurate. I have no problem them billing for the time spent. But the coding they used, activities they claim occurred, ahem, did not happen. I wouldn’t have even noticed if my insurance paid for it. It’s only when they stopped, that it became an issue. Why would they need to code odd things that don’t correspond? Again, feel free to bill for the time and expertise. They billed for ice packs they gave me when the air conditioning was out and I was over heating. That’s fine. That truly happened, and my insurance paid for it as ice packs are not an unusual charge. But don’t bill me for crud that’s unacceptable to insurance and didn’t even happen.

I forget what normal discomfort is anymore. They swapped out older exercises and gave me several new ones, totaling 19 plus stretches and some optional ones. I didn’t rush building up 30 reps of all the new ones right away. Alternated 10 at a time. A couple of days I felt more sharpish pain, so I’m backing off again. Have to chortle at the surgeon’s famous last words “let pain be your guide.” Well yeah, although you can still do damage with that. By the time you push things too hard, damage might already be done. Or else you do several exercises and feel off later, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what went too far.

I know it sounds like I’m being a slacker, but I don’t feel the need to push things too fast anymore. When you’re in PT, you want to make progress before your next session and get the most out of your sessions. You grimace and cringe in session and they say yep, it should feel like that; you’re fine, so you feel reassured that the unpleasantness is within safe parameters. But twinges, sharpness, or unexpected new discomfort several times in a week – it’s not worth pushing it. it wasn’t the end of the world, but surgery was awful. It’s not something I ever want to do again if I can avoid it. They say range of motion is what’s most important. Doing at least some exercises regularly keeps you improving, even if it’s not 30 reps of every single exercise at the maximum weight you can tolerate. Sharpish discomfort today following newer exercises . . . I’ll keep it up, but I’m not going to go crazy I’d rather recover slowly and totally than mess things up again. Also slowly adding the PT exercises I got for my knees, so it’s not like I’m taking time off. Some of those had to wait for shoulder recovery since they involve laying on my surgery arm.

Still can’t use my weighted blanket yet. I tried it twice in the last month, moving it very carefully, mainly only over my lower body. Nope. Not ready yet. Oh well. Goal to hope for.