Cortisone shot = No surgery, but still no swimming

Well, today was one of those good-news, bad-news kind of days. First, I locked my keys in the house when I left for the gym, so I had to walk about 15 minutes to get there. When I was done, Jen had to drive home from work to unlock the house for me. Yeah, I'm stupid. Anyway, I went to the gym to try and get a swim in before my appointment with the doctor later in the morning, because I feared it might be the last swim I would get to do in a while. Unfortunately, I was right...



This is the procedure I had done this morning. Yes, it hurt.

The good news was that my shoulder didn't even require an x-ray or MRI, which is a huge relief on my wallet. The doctor could tell I didn't have a tear or any bone issues based off the exercises he had me do. Fortunately, it's still just the same old issue of tendonitis and it simply refuses to heal, even though I've brought my swimming to a screeching halt. I had to get a cortisone injection in my shoulder, which was not fun and that's when the doctor told me the bad news; no swimming for 4-6 weeks. Zero.

It could be worse, though. Surgery would have likely kept me out of the pool for months, so hopefully when it heals properly and I start swimming again, I will start from scratch and work on having a more efficient stroke with bilateral breathing. That way, I don't put so much wear and tear on the one shoulder. It's still very frustrating though. I put off going to the doctor so I could afford to get an x-ray or MRI done at the beginning of the new year, and I didn't even need one. I could have gone in and had this procedure done months ago. I'd probably be back in the pool already.

The doctor also looked at my foot and told me my pain was because I didn't have the right running shoes, which sucks, because I just bought new ones and it's too late to return them now. Hopefully some ice for the rest of the week will keep the swelling down and some good insoles on Saturday morning will suffice to get me through my 10k. I have to revise my exercise goals for the year (I know, already), with swimming still not an option, so I'm going to drop my swimming goal down to 150 miles and up my cycling goal to 900 miles and my running goal up to 325 miles. Hopefully that will be enough to give me the extra cardio needed to make up for lost time in the pool.

Anyway, I managed just over a mile in the pool today, my last swim for a while....

Total distance: 1,850 yards