Well, it seems the wreck is never going to go away.
I had to go talk to my doc this morning, just a routine follow up kind of thing. I mentioned to him that I was having difficulty with my backstroke; the backward swing of it makes my left shoulder clunk and hurt, so I try not to do it too often - not the windmill version of it, anyway. He took a look, had a feel, moved my arm around and made my shoulder hurt, and told me he was pretty sure I had torn my labrum, the 'cup' of cartilage that holds the ball of the humerus in place. I did it when my shoulder dislocated during the impact. The clunking and pain I feel when I backstroke is actually my shoulder partially dislocating again.
"Bad news, Dharma. No more backstroke." he said.
"Good news....I can still swim?" I asked. "Please? Please say I can still swim?"
"Yeah...but....no front crawl, and I'd like it if you dropped down to 1/2 mile breast or side stroke. If you want to, you can complete the rest of your mile with a kickboard. It'll probably fix itself, but it takes a while. I'm not going to tell you you can't swim, period, because I know my telling you not to do something will only make you more determined to do it regardless...just take it easy or you'll have a lengthier recovery period and may end up having a surgery to fix it".
Wonderful. Another injury caused by the wreck. Just when I thought I was physically over it...I find out I'm not. On the bright side, I'm still able to do what I've been doing, I just have to modify slightly.
I refuse to let this stop me. I'm not even going to let it slow me down. I'm going to continue to swim a mile a day, and I'm going to use a kickboard for the second half..I'll get a better lower-body workout that way anyways. I'm tired of letting injuries, of letting the accident, define me and dictate what I can and can't do.
I refuse to. It's that simple.