My frustration with understanding how to do some shoulder exercises

(Chapter 15 Medical Appointments and its Challenges in my book)

Recently, I went to see my chiropractor about ongoing right shoulder pain to see if we can get the pain reduced. I have already seen an orthopedic doctor over the past two years and I have had x-rays and numerous cortisone shots that only help a little. I have been told that I need surgery, but I'm trying to avoid it!

My chiropractor has been working on my right shoulder twice a week for a couple of weeks and he has now added some exercises for me to do at home. He gave me a packet which included about fifteen exercises. On Monday, he had his assistant show me how to do two of the exercises. When I returned to his office on Wednesday his assistant had me check in with him to see how I was doing with the exercises. I looked at the pictures and I tried to comprehend what I was supposed to do, but when I demonstrated it, I was doing it wrong. There were also words with the picture, but sometimes even that doesn't help. He went over four exercises with me and when I was done, he had me try the first exercise again and I was doing it all wrong! He drew a little stick figure lying down next to the picture on the page and asked me if it helped and I said no. I told him that it is usually very frustrating for me to get new information into my long-term memory and then the problems with my comprehension and that just makes it that more difficult. I remember telling him that it was going to be a difficult project for him, especially with my “broken brain” and he said that we would just try a couple of exercises at a time and see how it goes.

I wished that my family and other people in general would understand that when someone is diagnosed with a memory impairment, having memory problems is only a small piece of the puzzle. I also have trouble with my comprehension, word finding problems, multi-step verbal directions, problems with planning things and probably other things that I just can't remember right now.

Luckily, at this appointment, I didn't have a meltdown because that would have been so embarrassing for me to deal with! Sometimes when I get extremely frustrated over not being able to do something right, I will cry because it is just too much for me to deal with. Right now, I haven't even tried to do these four exercises at home because I'm afraid of doing them wrong and causing myself even more pain. I'm not sure if there is a solution to this, but I wish that I could be successful in doing these shoulder exercises. I hate feeling like I'm a failure even though it is not my fault! This is so frustrating!