Full Rotation

After literally three months of pain and limitation from an inflamed rotator cuff, I am back in full swing. All my angst about "deterioration", "fraying tissue" and "ultimately, surgery may be necessary" has washed away and I am reveling in full mobility. It's been less than 48 hours since I went to see our friend and fabulous bodyworker Susan McDaniel with an office in Sebastopol (susanmcdaniel@yahoo.com). She is an orthopedic massage therapist and knows the human musculature and joint system like a mama knows her baby. She gently rocked my entire shoulder, methodically reawakening every little muscle from it's traumatized trance. The big problemo was actually the very common condition of weak supraspinatus, infraspinatus and teres minor muscles probably exasperated by poor computer posture, painting and relentless guitar playing which led to "impingement" which is just a fancy way of saying hot barbs of nagging pain. She gave me a long stretchy rubberband thingy, called a Thera-Band, and told me just how to pull on it to easily strengthen those little guys. Three movements, five times each. That's all. It actually felt so good to do it the first time that I had to pace myself to keep from overdoing it. By nightfall I was 75 percent improved. Today I feel almost completely free. I am so grateful to Susan for her expertise. Hallelujah! I really don't know why I didn't go to her sooner. Now I can get my new year off to a better start.

Rosette from ancient Roman fragments as depicted in a hand-colored engraving published by Carlo Antonin in 1781.