I’ve had people asking me this year why I’ve been so injured and seeing the doctor so much. It’s not really that things have suddenly come up; it’s that I went for so long without insurance coverage and just ignored issues related to my hypermobility since my other option was to just curl up and be depressed.

I ended up addressing a reoccurring problem with my shoulder this June by having a shoulder stabilization procedure done by my orthopedic surgeon. My MRI scan was clean, but in my surgeon’s physical exam he could feel my labrum was separating from the bone and the ligaments were just all too loose in general. During the surgery he was able to dislocate it with just light finger pressure. He also did an AC joint decompression and distal claviculectomy (shaving down the end of my collarbone) to reduce the load on my SC joint which keeps subluxating and is also giving me problems. He said we don’t want to do any procedure directly to my SC joint unless absolutely necessary because that’s a monster of a surgery, so I appreciate the conservative route being taken first. I’m continuing rehab for my shoulder at this point as the range of motion is coming slowly and due to the combination of procedures done is a bit more complex than a standard labrum repair/stabilization.

Piggybacking off maxing my insurance coverage for the year, I decided to see an ENT to find out what it would take to be able to breathe properly through my nose again for the first time in over a decade. Apparently it will take a lot and she ended up referring me over to the hospital facial plastic reconstruction department for an assessment. The surgeon said that if it wasn’t for my connective tissue disorder it’s likely I could get away with just a septoplasty, but since all of my nose cartilage is weak, he needs to reinforce a good amount of it in order to support proper airflow and prevent it from collapsing when I breathe. He clearly documented that it will be affecting the shape of my nose but that it is necessary for proper function, so insurance approved full coverage of a functional rhinoplasty. The fact that he has good knowledge of connective tissue disorders (without me prompting the topic) and how they affect the nose makes me very confident in his ability – all the other accolades he has as a leader at this top 10 university hospital help as well. If I can breathe half as good after healing up as I did when he propped my nostrils open to test my supported airflow, I’ll be happy all other factors aside. I can leave my mouth breathing days behind me!

This Week:

I’m flying out tomorrow to meet up with my Dad in Spain. He qualified to do the half Ironman World Championship triathlon (he had to place 1st in his division at another half Ironman to qualify) and that race is actually ON his 65th birthday this weekend. I’m planning to meet up with friends in Spain as well and then the day after his race we are flying to Marrakech for a couple of days just to see a new place. We were originally planning to do a week in Marrakech but since my surgery was scheduled for the week after I had to cut my visit short so I will have time to be rested for that procedure. Historically speaking it takes me about 3 days to recover from a trip like this; so coming back 6 days before my surgery should be adequate and my surgeon didn’t have a problem with it when I mentioned the travel during my consult.

In the New Year:

Starting in the New Year I should be mostly recovered from everything, and finally caught up on all the things that were medically neglected. I’ve spoken with my head Jiu Jitsu professor and have his enthusiastic support to start teaching a Friday evening 90 minute class for our academy. It’s been a weak point in our academy since we opened since our head professor usually travels on weekends and can’t run a Friday evening class, and none of our other black belt instructors are available to teach that time slot on a consistent basis. Hopefully it will do well once people realize it’s available as a class! Most of our evening classes at that same time slot are high intensity heavy hitting classes, so I’m planning to offset that by making this one a more instructional based one to close out the week after everyone has physically and mentally exhausted themselves with training/work/life.

My big target for next year competitively is the Abu Dhabi World Pro in November. Our head professor has agreed to go with me and compete as well which is exciting as I have always made that trip alone. Once some of my other team mates learn that our head professor is going they may end up joining in as well and making a small travel group out of it! I figure by spring I should be able to be back to normal moderate training after my procedures and ready to start slowly increasing load intensity by July for a safe gradual increase. Slowly increasing without overloading is especially important for my joint stability to be able to adapt while mitigating my injury risk.