What grief and a torn rotator cuff have in common...

Side plank with the right arm, finally!

In February of 2014, I - in all my gracefulness - took a hard fall on the ice (note to self: cowboy boots are not appropriate footwear for slick surfaces), landing directly on my right shoulder as my feet reached toward the sky. Think a "no-hands" headstand.

Yes. Ouch.

And there we were. Me and pain.

For a few weeks, I walked around in a state of denial. Maybe if I ignore the pain long enough, if I pretend it isn't there, it'll just ~~**~~ p o o f ~~**~~ go away. Like magic.

Only, it didn't work.

Three months later, my entire arm was immobilized. My yoga practice ceased. I was unable to complete the tasks I'd once done with such ease. I couldn't use my computer, at least not as easily. I was not me.

And my frustration and fear were building, culminating in a visit to the most wonderful doc in Sedona (Steven Johnson, M.D., the most amazing and compassionate PCP I've ever known!).

He checked my range of motion.

"Let's get an MRI," he gently suggested, knowing full-well I would resist.

"Uggggggghhhh," I groaned.  Predictable me.  "I don't have time," I grumbled.

"Umm," he paused, "you are preferring the alternative?"

Fast forward two weeks, when I could finally get in for the MRI.

When the report was released, the news was grim. Significant tear and plenty of other damage I'd done not properly attending to the injury sooner.

Wonderful Dr Johnson called to deliver the bad news.

"... You're going to have to see a surgeon, you know?" he, again, reluctantly said, knowing, again, I'd resist.

It's a rare occasion when I obey, but my range of motion had declined significantly enough- and my quality of sleep was dreadfully impaired- that I acquiesced. Fast forward two more weeks...

"What are my options here... I have options, right? I said, firmly, to the surgeon. He explained that my torn rotator cuff was exacerbated by "frozen shoulder"... that is, I was so protective of the wound, that scar tissue, a capsule, formed around the injury that precluded any movement whatsoever.

I threw my head back and laughed out loud, immediately seeing the metaphor for grief.

"Of course, oh my gosh, of course!" I blurted loudly.

"What?" he asked, looking at me with furrowed, questioning brows.

"Nevermind," I said seriously, coming back to that moment.

Surgery - and the successive 4-6 month recovery - was clearly not an option for me, even if it meant I could circumvent some pain.

But by this point, literally, I could not lift my arm two inches. He did say that on occasion, these tears seem to be able to heal with physical therapy and time... now there's a thread of hope to which I can tie myself. And tie I did.

I left the surgeon's office frustrated and disappointed but with a gaunt taste of optimism. Time and some hard work. I knew the path.

Fast forward yet again. The first few sessions of physical therapy, I wanted to quit. I wanted to run straight into the operating room. The pain of every movement, every stretch... oh goodness, just thinking of it now brings back that acute pain. Had it not been for the compassion, patience, and support of a wonderful PT named Dave, I might not have made it.

But I trusted Dave. I trusted my body. And I trusted my capacity to hold the pain.

Slowly, slowly, slowly - week after week - my body released itself to the pain. It surrendered. The muscles, once paralytic, were finally thawing. Dave would press into a muscle that was tight, gripping me. He'd hold  his fingers in the very deep place of the pain. Tears would fill my eyes. He'd remind me to breath. I'd say, "I can't. I can't." Yet, I did, I did. And then moments later, the muscle would release, relax, and let go.

Every week I went to therapy, I felt like I was in an intensive course about grief.

Fifteen weeks into physical therapy, I regained 90% of my range of motion. But it wasn't without a great deal of suffering.

Now, it's ten months post fall. Without surgical intervention, I've managed, somehow, to heal this broken shoulder. I'm back to all my old tricks- wheel, down dog, even side crow, headstands, and a four-minute plank, longer and better than before the injury! And I can use both hands to put away the dishes.

Beyond that reward, though, my sage body had given me the gift of insight, circumspect, and validation.

Pain, as Rumi said, is the great messenger, and it had sent the message. My body and my heart, the great receivers of the message, listened.

It took a long, long time to heal a simple injury, one that was purely physical.  How much longer, then, would it take to heal a shattered heart? The death our Beloved is an inviolable, hallowed injury. Yes, it is, and it is an existential wound that surely takes a lifetime and beyond...

"The healing from the pain is in the pain."  

-Rumi