Tag: left arm

I broke my arm

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, Health3 Comments

So funny story…  I broke my arm.

What happened was, last night I rode my bicycle to the store and on my way home I was riding through a parking lot to go to the sidewalk on Chester Avenue. In the parking lot of the restaurant is a tax place and they put in a walk way to the front door. For some reason they decided to put a curb on both sides of the walkway. There’s really no reason for it. Long story short, I was riding through the parking lot and it was dark so I really couldn’t see the curb and I rode right over it . I went head over handlebars and landed on my left arm. All of my weight broke my arm.

I sat there on the ground for a few minutes because I couldn’t move. My arm was in so much pain that it hurt to even flinch. I decided that I had to get up, but it was very difficult. I got up anyway and went for my phone which was in my left front pocket. Of course I couldn’t pull it out with my left hand, so I had to reach over with my right hand to pull my phone out. I called home and said “help I’ve been in an accident.” I told my partner where I was and he drove right away to pick me up.

He put my bicycle in the car and drove home because I insisted that he put the groceries in the refrigerator and freezer. He drove me to the emergency room at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and they took me to get x-rays almost immediately. It took maybe an hour and a half before they finally called me to go into a room to tell me the results of the x-ray. I just assumed that he was going to tell me that I dislocated my shoulder or just badly bruised my arm, but he told me that I did in fact break my arm. He didn’t put me in a cast and I didn’t have any surgery, he said that the bones were in place, so I just need to keep my arm in a sling for the next month.

I feel very stupid for not paying more attention because I have gone that way a million times and nothing like that has ever happened before. The thing that upsets me the most is that I’ve never broken a bone in my body my entire life. 42 years with not one broken bone. Oh well, I guess I was due lol.

Well, the positive thing about this is that I am able to type this by using my voice on my android cell phone lol. So I guess most of my computer activity is going to be with my voice. On the plus side, I don’t have to do any chores for a while lol. I can find a silver lining in anything.

The doctor said it will take a month to heal.

Shoulder Exercises – Bad

On By Michel McDonaldIn ExerciseLeave a comment

Well I thought that working my shoulder muscles on my home gym was going to help my shoulder but it’s only making it worse.  The first couple of days I was doing it my shoulder started feeling better.  I was already making plans to go bike riding after a week hoping that this would fix the problem and I’d be back to normal.

I was only doing 4 out of those 6 exercises and only doing 10 reps of each and I’m not using that much weight.  My weider home gym works by the height that you have it set to.  If you have it set real low then you aren’t use any weight at all but if you have it set at its highest point then you are using all of your weight and probably then some.  And if you use the bungees at the bottom you are adding more resistance.  I was only doing it 1/4 high.  I don’t know exactly how much weight that is because they didn’t give me a chart on how to calculate how much weight I’m lifting but I can only assume that I’m only using 1/4 of my weight which would be 60lbs.

I also stopped the cold/heat because I believe it was causing problems with my left arm.  For the last week I was using cold/heat the pain was going down my left arm and it was almost at my hand so by stopping the cold/heat the pain actually went away in my arm.  It was going away from my back too and I thought that perhaps it was due to me using the gym.  Perhaps it was a combination of both.  Maybe stopping cold/heat and starting the gym.  Maybe I should’ve stopped the cold/heat for a few days then started up again and maybe I should’ve only used the gym once per day instead of 2-3 times per day.

Whatever the reason the pain is coming back for is beyond me.  I just know I can’t suffer anymore.  I am suffering and I am tired of it.  I can’t work, I can’t lay on my left side, I can’t ride my bike, I can’t really do anything at all that involves breathing lol.

Home Gym

On By Michel McDonaldIn ExerciseLeave a comment

weiderI’ve said before that I’m going to do it but then I wuss out because of my shoulder pain but I really need to do it for my shoulder pain.  I need to bring my Weider Total Body Works 5000 home gym into the patio from the back yard and start using it.

I think that if I work that muscle, the shoulder muscle that hurts and my back muscles, that I might be able to strengthen it up.

I’ve had this shoulder pain for almost a month now and it seems like it’s moving from my shoulder to my neck and also down my left arm as well as being in my shoulder.  So I think that the only way I’m going to fix this is by exercising those muscles.

When I was going to the Chiropractors office in 2005 they would give me a massage, I would lay on a hot water bed with jets shooting at my back, they would put these electric things on my back that would shoot electricity into the muscle then the doctor would adjust my back and then they would send me over to their gym room where I would use the weight machine and do the exercises that they told me to do.  I still have the paper with all the exercises too.

They had me pull on the weight cable then hold for about 5 or 10 seconds or whatever, I forgot.  Then I would do it again, so about maybe 10 times for 5-10 seconds.  So I believe that this worked so I think I should do the same.

I’m giving myself shiatsu massages, vibrating massages, putting cold then heat on my shoulder.  I can’t adjust myself but I do try to crack my back when I can.  I don’t have a little twin sized water bed with heat and jets and I don’t have one of those things that you put on your muscle then push the button to electronically stimulate the muscles by zapping it (as seen on Jackass the movie where they put it on their balls lol) but I do have a home gym and it’s about time I use it.

I really want this pain to go away.  It’s been almost a month and I haven’t been on my bike in that amount of time.  I’m told to just go to the Chiropractors office but how am I going to get there?  Bus then have to walk the rest of the way?  Every step I take causes pain in my shoulder.  In 2005 I was going 3 days a week, that’s $3 a week in bus fair that I just can’t spare.  I would ride my bicycle but then I’d be paranoid that it’s going to get stolen the whole time cause you are in there for 2-3 hours at least.

So my best alternative is to just suffer and use the options I have available to me I guess.  Maybe if I had a person to drive me then it would be easier but I don’t.  We have a perfectly good SUV in the driveway that I could get there with but… don’t know how to drive and even if I did, it’s gonna cost me a lot more than $3 a week in gas.