The Looooooooong Road to Recovery

I spent most of December and all of January on a sick leave. It felt surreal because from the outside, I looked just fine. The tennis elbow problem, which started off with the ganglion cyst on my right wrist, has now been felt on both arms. I've been to two different physiotherapists (PT) and I've gone back and forth to the doctor many times to get a sick leave. Not fun. The worst part of all was probably the thought of losing my job and not being able to recover fully. Yikes! What would I do, then? If I hated my job, the sick leave would probably make me feel relieved, but that is not the case at all since I still enjoy my job. So the stress of being out of work for a long time also weighed on my mind a lot. 

I've discovered kinesio taping and ultrasound massage from two different PTs. Twice the first PT put on some kinesio tape on my arms (each time I asked her to do it on a different arm since I wanted to test the difference between that arm and the arm without any kinesio taping on). I've also received lots of pointers on how to keep a good posture and a neutral position for my wrists whenever I do anything. The second PT even managed to pinpoint what I must've done wrong to make my back (shoulder blades) become so tight. I've also received a series of stretching/strengthening exercises to do. 

On the worst days, I couldn't even cook anything a bit more complicated without any throbbing pain afterwards. Since it was my first bout of tennis elbow, it took me lots of trials and errors to know what to do and what not to do. The second PT told me that what worked and what didn't work varied greatly from one person to another. No wonder! I felt at such a loss before I had my PT appointments.

Anyway, this week I started going back to work again. I'm thankful that my bosses are understanding and supportive and since I only work part-time, my work schedule is ideal for me. I still feel some pain (it varies depending on the activities I do) and I'm still using the kinesio tape (I've been learning how to put it myself through trial and errors), but I've stopped using the painkiller in the form of gel since it only masks the pain. I've learnt that it's handy to use some painkiller when the pain is too much or it makes me unable to rest well during the nights, but when the pain has subsided, it may be dangerous to keep using it as it only makes me feel that I'm much better already, whereas in actual fact it's not true. 

I don't know how long it'll take until I feel no more pain from doing work/exercise. So far I've only done one shift and I had a little pain afterwards and the next day after I did some zumba (and the strengthening exercise routine), I felt more pain. I don't dare shovel the snow yet, so I feel bad for my husband since it's been snowing a lot again. But anyway, I feel more hopeful about healing after meeting the PTs.

Anyway, here are some photos I took during my walks (okay, the first photo is the exception LOL!). These days I rarely use my bulky camera to take photos as it's easier to take photos with my mobile he he...