It's a matter of scale

Today I had my second six week follow up doctors appointment with my cervical spine specialist.  The last visit went well and the doctor basically said that as long as my left triceps keeps getting stronger AND I don't feel pain, then I can avoid surgery.  If however, either my muscle doesn't get stronger or I feel pain in my neck (or related muscles) then it's under the knife for me.

In the short term, the surgery option is awful. Softball is going well. I'm practicing my new golf swing. We have tickets to go see Joisey Ken in August. Bill the Bear is getting married in August and we have his bachelor party planned out (which involves golf as well). So a lot of things would be changed for the worse if I had surgery. In the long term though, my strength would most likely come back 100% at some point down the road post-surgery. It wouldn't be guaranteed, but it was likely.

So, a lot was riding on my office visit today. The doc came in and started his assessment, first feeling my triceps for atrophy.  Afterwards he posited, "Now which one had the weakness?" "My left." I said, along with, "Well that must be a good sign if you can't tell!". He muttered about it not being conclusive and went through the usual battery of strength tests, though he repeated one of them several times. At the end he said, "Well, you were a 3+/4- early on; then a 4/4+ and now I'd say you're probably a 4+/5-." Oh, I thought to myself. That's not very good. We had a discussion about how I was concerned that my strength wasn't a plateau, but it's slope was very shallow and I'd hoped for a steeper improvement curve.  That discussion didn't seem to interest him much and I wondered if he's not into math.

Anyway, he agreed that I didn't need to do anymore formal physical therapy (a recommendation from my therapist) and that I should continue strengthening it on my own. I asked if golfing and playing softball could be impeding a quicker recovery and he said it shouldn't unless I was experiencing pain (which I haven't been). And that was it. We shook hands and out he went. Briefly I felt like Charlie at Wonka's factory when Wonka says good-bye to him and Grandpa Joe, before Charlie turns in the Everlasting Gobstopper and inherits the factory. A little confused.

"Should I set up an appointment in six weeks?"  I called after him.  "Nope. No need to come back unless you re-injure it."  Oh happy day!

After lunch, I went to my last PT appointment and discussed what the doctor said including how I was only a 4+/5-.  "Well, the scale only goes to 5 you know right?" said my therapist Lauren. "Um, no. I kind of assumed it was a 10 point scale. Who uses a 5 point scale??" Apparently therapists and doctors!

My triceps is by no means that close to 100% of what it was, but it is stronger and there's hope for a full recovery.  Much work ahead though.