Elbow Recovery

I've been doing some pretty focused rehab on my right elbow for the last five days in an effort to get this tendonitis under control.

After last Tuesday's golf game, when I realized that things had not improved very much, I went online to see if I could find some at home stretching and strengthening exercises.

I found some, seven in fact, that seemed fairly straight-foward and not too bizarre (online being what it is, there is some weird stuff out there). The seven exercises were to be repeated twice per day followed by icing of the elbow.

I began on Wednesday of last week. One of the exercises in particular was pretty painful and I could not do more than 6 repeats (I'm supposed to work up to between 30-50). And by the time I hit six I no longer had enough strength in my hand to grip my makeshift weight (which, by the way, was a half-empty jar of almond butter).

I stretched, I strengthened, I iced and I went to bed.

The next morning, things felt much much better.

I carried on over Thursday, Friday and Saturday and, by Saturday, I was doing 25 repeats of the movement I could hardly do on Wednesday.

My elbow was still sore but much better and the pain hung around mostly for the few hours after I worked it and then it settled down again.

Sunday, Doug and I had booked a tentative golf game. Tentative based on my elbow.

I was nervous but decided to try it. Worst case, I would play one hole and we would go home again.

We played nine and stopped because it was terribly cold and windy, not because my elbow wanted me to.

There was still a fair amount of sensitivity when I swung the club but the degree of pain I felt last Tuesday was much reduced. So while I didn't cure it in four days (which I never expected to anyway) but I certainly made some progress.

That makes me feel better. Not better enough to get back into the pool and back on the rowing machine but better enough to play golf once or twice a week.

Speaking of golf, we played nine holes and it went so well that, when I entered my score into the golfing scoring system, my handicap dropped. Pretty wonderful way to start the 2015 season non?