In a bit of a role reversal, our very own co-founder Jeff White has recently found himself soon to be in need of the Restart! app in more than a QA capacity. And in true Jeff White-form, he leapt at the opportunity to share this experience in the hopes that it may be helpful to anyone else in a similar position. This is the story of how Jeff is navigating the long road to recovery from severe injury with determination, innovation, and an unyielding focus on balanced healing.
The Crash
In October of this year, Jeff’s regular routine of physical activity came to a crashing halt—with a literal crash—when his mountain bike collided with a tree, launching him shoulder-first into the trunk. Immediately after impact, Jeff knew he’d really done it. With each step as he made his way back off the trail to the parking lot to meet his wife Patty, he could feel and (deeply unsettlingly) hear movement in his left shoulder and clavicle area. A trip to the ER confirmed a Grade 3 AC separation and hinted at more underlying issues, which a subsequent MRI revealed.
If you’re squeamish, you might want to skim past the next sentence and section describing the surgery. Jeff’s collision had caused extensive damage, including a full-thickness rotator cuff tear, a Type 2 SLAP tear, bicep tendonitis, and significant impingement. From there, it was clear what the next move had to be: surgery.
Everything But a New Shoulder
Jeff’s surgery was “pretty much everything you could do except a full shoulder replacement.” They repaired his torn rotator cuff, repositioned his biceps tendon from its original location to reduce pain and improve function, fixed the AC joint separation using a cadaver hamstring ligament to stabilize the separated joint, removed damaged tissue using arthroscopy, and trimmed his clavicle to prevent it from rubbing against tendons. Phew!
In the few weeks since surgery, Jeff has been stuck wearing one of those heavy-duty immobilizing slings, which makes most activities of daily living difficult and/or uncomfortable. And sleep? Not easy to do with one of those. But despite the considerable downsides of the whole experience, Jeff’s resiliency shows in how he talks about how he plans to bounce back. And in these early post-surgical days, Jeff’s been trying to do what he can to reduce swelling and pain by utilizing an ice sleeve, and he recently bought a more advanced sleeve that also offers compression.
Very Active to Inactive
As we mentioned in an early blog profiling Jeff, he’s an active guy who has been consistently committed to healthy aging. Competing in Ironman triathlons in his early 60s, he’s not like a lot of other folks in his demographic, who, according to stats, are less likely to be meeting the recommended physical activity guidelines for adults, much less voluntarily signing up for strenuous races. Long story short: Jeff’s been an athlete his entire life. So suddenly losing the ability to do anything for weeks? Months? It’s a jarring transition and a depressing proposition.
“All activity completely stopped from the day of the crash until I got out of surgery. Now they have me doing pendulum swings, but I can’t do any upper body work with my good arm without jostling the injured shoulder too much.” Jeff says. “Physical immobility is severely depressing. I feel like I’m experiencing in a condensed timeline how people get injured and just never really recover because they get caught in a downward spiral. It’s so easy to sit there and say, ‘Oh, my shoulder hurts, I’m not going to do anything.’ I know that’s the trap, though, and I know I’ve gotta start doing whatever I can do. Right now, I am just living for when I get cleared to start physical therapy. Then I’ll have goals to hit and keep me motivated throughout this process.”
It’s a process that Jeff has had to come to terms with being much longer than he’d like. The realization that your recovery could be nine to 12 months, and more likely will be 12 months, is shocking. “It seems like forever,” says Jeff. “And if somebody was already inactive before that, man, I can see how that would just be impossible to come back from.” So Jeff is already prepping for whatever his new normal will look like in rebuilding his fitness habit in recovery, investing in home gym equipment that will allow him to stick to his PT homework diligently.
Doing What He Can & Staying Balanced
For now, Jeff is easing into working out his lower body and doing what he can do with the parts of his body that are functioning fine. Walking on the treadmill, doing weight training with exercises like leg extensions and leg curls, inner and outer thigh abduction, etc. are all things he’s eager to get back in the habit of doing. Squats with weights will have to wait though, since he can’t take any load on his shoulders yet.
Another point of focus for Jeff in his recovery is to ensure he’s keeping his body in balance by working out his good shoulder alongside his injured one. In past experiences with PT, he’s noticed that there can be such a focus on working the one body part of concern and no attention given to its counterparts. That can lead to a lopsided recovery that can cause other issues down the road. “Recovery isn’t just about fixing one part. It’s about finding harmony in the whole body,” Jeff says of his recovery philosophy.
It’s lucky then that Jeff is one of the minds behind the Restart! app, which offers balanced workouts that can be tailored to an individual’s abilities and conditions—like a shoulder in recovery. Jeff plans to start using Restart! workouts as soon as he possibly can, and hopes to work with our physical therapist friend Beth Schmelling and the app development team on ensuring that his app workouts align with his PT exercises. Piloting that functionality will be important for future phases of the app. The Restart! app will eventually allow for greater manual customization so that a PT patient can have their therapist create a plan for them in the app. That’s a considerable step up from handing them some print-outs that will probably end up lost in a stack of mail on the kitchen counter.
A New Perspective
Although it’s still the beginning of Jeff’s journey, the experience thus far has been transformative in giving him the perspective of someone who has to start over with their physical fitness later in life. It has taken the Restart! mission from a concept to his lived experience, deepening his commitment to providing solutions that support individuals who are starting over, no matter where they’re coming from. “The app has a real purpose and now I’m living in the shoes of the people who are at the center of that purpose. It’s about meeting people where they are and helping them get back. So now I get to use it to meet me where I am and help me get back. It’s kind of an amazing turn of events that I helped create this thing that I now very much need.”
Stay tuned for updates on Jeff’s journey on the blog and check out the Restart! app for yourself here. Try it free for three months and then pay just $24.99 per three months to keep your new habit going. Cancel your subscription at any time.