When Recovery Means Redefining "Good Enough" Every Single Day

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:06

Hey, there. Welcome to getting to Good Enough. I'm Shannon Wilkinson.

Janine Adams: 00:00:10

And I'm Janine Adams. We're here for practical and fun conversations about living with more ease and way less stress.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:17

Yep. We're all about embracing progress over perfection. So grab a tasty beverage and let's get started. Hey, Janine.

Janine Adams: 00:00:26

Hey, Shannon. How are you doing?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:27

I'm doing pretty well, all things considered. How are you?

Janine Adams: 00:00:31

Oh, gosh, I'm great because it's so good to see you. I haven't seen you for a month.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:38

I think more than a month.

Janine Adams: 00:00:40

Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:41

Yeah. Well, it's weird because, you know, to our listeners, it seems like we've been seeing each other every week.

But in fact, all of the new episodes that we have published were recorded before September 23rd, when I had surgery on my left shoulder.

Janine Adams: 00:01:05

Yep. So I think our Last recording was September 15th. So, yeah, it's been. And now it's Halloween.

So it's been six weeks and yet you still look incredibly beautiful. Like, I don't know how you do it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:18

I'm telling you that the thing that's been keeping me going is most days, like, probably 95% of days, I get up, brush my teeth, brush my hair, change my clothes, like, put on my basically day pajamas. I put on a T shirt and sweats instead of a T shirt and pajama bottoms and, you know, try to. To differentiate night from day.

Janine Adams: 00:01:58

Right. Yeah. Well, that's, you know, that's important, I think. Right. It helps.

I would imagine it helps mark the time and makes you feel better once you're up and cleaned up and so forth.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:02:09

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:02:11

You have to wear this crazy brace all.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:02:14

Yes.

Janine Adams: 00:02:14

All the time.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:02:16

I have been wearing this 247 for the first five weeks. And this week I am actually weaning out of it and decreasing how much I'm wearing it, which has been wonderful.

But I spent a lot of time out of it yesterday, so my arms really sore today, so I'm spending more time in it today. But for our listeners, it's like it's a harness. Basically. It's called a gunslinger because it holds your hand in what's supposed to be.

I'm going to stand up for a minute.

Janine Adams: 00:02:56

For the video listeners.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:02:59

Yeah. For the video watchers. So hold your hand in a gunslinger position.

Janine Adams: 00:03:04

Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:03:05

I think they could come up with a less violent name for it, but yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:03:10

Don't give people any ideas for smuggling guns somewhere. Right. It's hard for me to imagine sleeping in that.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:03:22

Well, it's sort of funny.

It's Hard to sleep in because it's a metal bar that curves around my torso and a metal bar that my arm is anchored against and then straps so that the. There's. My arm isn't holding itself up at all. It can completely rest.

And my torso, not just my neck, is, you know, like your neck is basically what's holding up your sling if you're wearing like a regular sling.

And then also because of the repairs that I had to have on my rotator cuff, and then I also had to have biceps tenodesis where they detach the bicep tendon and reattach it in a different spot because it was dislocating it. My arm has to be immobilized in a particular position. So that's why I'm like, that's why.

Janine Adams: 00:04:22

You have to sleep in it?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:04:23

Yeah, yeah. And that's why you have to sleep in it because you have to stay immobilized. And it's a little hard to get used to.

But I have about a: 2027

Janine Adams: 00:04:34

Are you sleeping in your own bed now? Now? No. Are you on the guest bed?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:04:39

Yes, I was on the couch for the first four weeks just because it was easier to sort of prop myself up against the couch so I couldn't roll backwards and then like on my right side and then pillows underneath the metal part so it would lift it up so it wouldn't press down on my torso and make me feel like I couldn't breathe and. But then I moved into the guest bed, which is a twin bed that you have actually right over there.

Janine Adams: 00:05:14

I thought, I thought it was called Janine's bed.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:05:17

Actually, it's Janine's bed. Right. Other friends might disagree with you and say they're bad, but. Yeah.

So I've moved into, into the guest bed where I have like this body pillow against the wall and I have like, I have three pillows that graduating height. So like my shoulder, my neck, my head is all up on it. And then I have pillows that go underneath the brace to sort of keep it from gouging me.

And you know, once you get all settled, it's quite comfortable. Plus, you know, pain medication. So. Yeah, yeah.

But I am supposed to start sleeping without it, which as much as I dislike sleeping with it, it's terrifying to sleep without it.

Janine Adams: 00:06:15

I was thinking that must feel really scary too.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:06:17

Yeah, yeah. And I started to sleep without it last night and woke up and ended up putting it back on at like one o' clock in the morning. So. Yeah.

We're working out of it, but yeah, so it was. It's been a bit of a wild ride.

And it was especially, I don't know, sort of emotionally fraught because in April, we, like, formally decided we're going to restart the podcast and we're going to do it at the beginning of September. And we set that and then we sort of started working on it a little bit.

And then June or July, I think I started PT for my left shoulder because it'd been bothering me for a while. And then they were like, oh, you need to get an mri. And then I get an mri and then I have two rotator cuff tears.

And I knew that I was having problems with my biceps tendon because, you know, you can feel when the tendon goes out of the groove. That's pretty obvious. But I didn't know I had these rotator cuff tears. And that got scheduled out a ways. Like when I went to.

Schedule was out kind of far. And then my surgeon was going on vacation, and so she wasn't going to be able to read it until I, like, August.

Janine Adams: 00:07:55

Late August.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:07:56

Late August. Yeah. And so we talked about it, you know, like, well, should we pause things? Should we wait? And it's.

s to us ending the podcast in: 2023

Janine Adams: 00:08:20

Yeah. So you knew that this was not a small thing.

And of course, the excitement of restarting the podcast is very different from where we were before your other shoulder surgery, where it stopped being as fun after five years. It was more of a drag. So that decision felt right. But it is kind of ironic, isn't it, that.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:42

Yeah. I did sort of think like, oh, is this like, the universe telling us something or. And then I was like, no, that's ridiculous. Come on.

Janine Adams: 00:08:54

Right, Right. We got this. We can figure this out. And we, you know, we planned to.

To pre record as many episodes as we could before your surgery and managed to get quite a few in there.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:08

Yeah. Yeah. A lot. Because here we are just recording, you know, five weeks post surgery.

Janine Adams: 00:09:19

Yeah. And we won't. This episode won't air for a few more weeks, I don't think.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:23

Yeah. Unless we decide to do it next week. Who knows?

Janine Adams: 00:09:26

That's right. Because we're the boss.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:28

We are. We are the bosses of us.

Janine Adams: 00:09:31

We get to do whatever we want. That's right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:36

But I. I appreciate you, like, being willing to move forward with so much uncertainty because a lot of people maybe wouldn't be up for that.

Janine Adams: 00:09:47

Oh, yeah. That didn't even. That. That. That didn't. What? There was no deterrent at all for me.

Maybe because of how I'm wired, but also to me, I just, I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:10:02

That.

Janine Adams: 00:10:03

Because you didn't need more on your mind prior to the surgery. If it seemed like that was going to be some sort of burden, maybe we wait. But I'm glad we didn't because it's.

I mean, it's been really fun and we got all the. We had so much the. That we had to learn technologically to restart the podcast. And of course, now we have to relearn it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:10:26

I know, I know.

I tell you, it took a little while for me to get logged in for recording and get set up properly and everything because it seems like a lifetime ago that we did this.

Janine Adams: 00:10:41

Yeah. I sat down ready to go and realized I didn't have my microphone or my AirPods.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:10:47

Okay.

Janine Adams: 00:10:50

Oh, yeah. This isn't gonna work. Yeah, yeah. And then there's gonna be the editing and all that stuff. But that we. You have to relearn because my part.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:10:59

At least I've been able to actually been doing some.

Janine Adams: 00:11:01

Oh, that's true. You've been. Yeah, that's right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:11:03

I've been doing some editing. We got this. I mean, this is a game changer because it's my left arm, so it's my non dominant arm, so I've had use of my right hand.

Janine Adams: 00:11:17

Your editing hand.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:11:19

Yeah, my money maker. And. Oh, that's ironic. But, yeah.

So, you know, I've been able to do a little bit of that, which has been really nice to be able to do a little bit of work on, you know, on my own schedule when I'm feel up to doing it, as opposed to, you know, I've had to really limit client sessions and stuff.

Janine Adams: 00:11:53

Yeah. Because you're, you're, I mean, editing too, but your client work takes a whole lot of brain power on your part and attention and all the things.

And when painkillers are involved, it's. Got it. Or pain. Either one of those things. That's got to be hard.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:12:07

Yeah. Well, I have not been using painkillers and I'm not using them during the day today. Oh, so just pain right now, not painkillers.

Janine Adams: 00:12:19

Right, but pain's hard. Pain's hard to work through.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:12:22

Yeah. But, you know, it just. I'm. I'm glad we kept going. It's been good. It's giving me something to look forward to, which is really Nice to get back to.

And. And. But I. It's so funny because some of our.

The first episodes that we recorded for this new reboot were about like my morning routine and like creating new habits. And then of course, all that stuff went out the window immediately after surgery because there's no routine.

There's like, set my alarm every five hours to take pain medication. That's my routine. And.

Janine Adams: 00:13:02

Not so sad, but at least it's all documented for you to come back to.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:13:08

Right? Right. Yeah. So, yeah, I was editing the episode about energy. Yeah. I mean, that was a tongue twister, regardless of my state of mind.

And I was just sort of laughing like, you know, I was all excited to do this experiment about like my daily energy flows and. And then it's like, well, that's out the window for a while.

Janine Adams: 00:13:40

Yeah. I was listening to that episode after your surgery and thinking, yeah, it's going to be a while before we get to report back on how.

How Shannon's doing with her experiment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, mine's going very well, so I look forward to telling you about that when. When we start talking about it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:13:58

Oh, good.

Janine Adams: 00:13:59

Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:00

When I have a regular schedule again.

Janine Adams: 00:14:03

Yeah, exactly.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:04

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:14:04

It is sort of funny how life is that way. But these whatever weeks. September 23rd, what do we decide?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:12

It's.

Janine Adams: 00:14:13

It's five weeks.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:14

You said five and a half weeks. Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:14:16

Yeah. Must have crawled along for you, right? I mean, does it feel like forever ago that.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:22

Well, it's, you know, one of those time warp things where it seems like it's been really fast and also forever. Like I barely remember life before wearing this sling, but also it just seems like yesterday, you know?

Janine Adams: 00:14:40

Have you named that sling, by the way?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:42

No, that never occurred in me. And this is the same one that I. It's that I wore for my right shoulder.

Janine Adams: 00:14:52

Oh. Oh, you own it?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:54

I. I had to pay for it. My 20% of this absurdly expensive thing, which you could buy for a tenth of the price on Amazon, not from a medical supplier.

And yeah, so when they quoted me the price of the new sling, I was like, can you just fit me with my old one? And they're like, yeah, sure.

Janine Adams: 00:15:23

That's amazing. Did you anticipate. Did you keep it, anticipating you might need it for another surgery?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:15:30

No, I'm not quite sure why I didn't burn it in effigy in the backyard after the last go around with it. Really?

Janine Adams: 00:15:40

That's good thing you have a big house, so you had a place to put it and you found it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:15:45

Well, because I have a bin of all my orthopedic supplies because of course I do.

Janine Adams: 00:15:52

Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:15:53

You know, my walking boot and my. And this. And I have like three different slings because last time I had to graduate from this to another sling to another, you know, to whatever.

I have my ice therapy machine. Yeah. So I. I have all my equipment all together in one spot.

Janine Adams: 00:16:16

Yeah. Well, that's good. I mean.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:16:19

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:16:19

Glad you didn't have to buy that again. And it is great that it's convertible that way.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:16:24

I know. I was like, that's brilliant. That was the first thing I did.

I like pulled it out and looked at the instructions to see if it was like a right arm one or something. And it's like, no, it's like left or right. I was like, excellent. I'm going to have them switch it for me.

Janine Adams: 00:16:42

Yeah, that's good. Well, it'll be nice when you don't have to. When you're well enough that you don't have to have it anymore.

And then you will have run out of shoulders. Will you? Well, you never know. I was going to say, will you keep it again? But you. You've run out of shoulders.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:16:57

But yeah, that's irrelevant because, I mean, the, the reason why I'm having these surgeries is because I have a connective tissue disorder.

I have a hypermobility, and the chances of failure are greater for someone who has my joints compared to, you know, someone who has an actual acute injury and tears their rotator cuff or labrum or something.

Janine Adams: 00:17:26

So you could. You have more surgeries in your life?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:29

I could have most trust issues in my life, certainly.

But I am learning a lot and doing an exercise program that hopefully will strengthen my muscles to better support my joints so they don't get the wear and tear and they don't put it on the connective tissue that then causes problems and blah, blah, blah. So.

Janine Adams: 00:17:53

Yeah, that's great.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:55

Yeah. I mean, hopefully it makes a difference. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, now it's just really about embracing whatever good enough means in the moment because it changes moment to moment.

Janine Adams: 00:18:14

Right. And keeping that good enough in mind, that good enough really is good enough.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:18:19

This. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:18:20

That's probably very helpful.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:18:23

Yeah. So I'm. I'm super happy to have all of the.

All of our good enough, our getting to good enough conversations under my belt to, you know, help make this a little bit easier. This is. Was definitely not in the plan.

Janine Adams: 00:18:42

Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:18:44

I mean, I. I'm pretty sure that I made some I don't know what you'd call them. Threats, maybe that. I mean, because my right shoulder was so horrendous, like, the recovery was so horrendous that.

That I was like, I'd rather, like, lose the use of my arm than go through that again, and here I am. Right. Because there's an empty thread, apparently.

Janine Adams: 00:19:14

Right. Yeah. Well. And hopefully this isn't as bad as the right shoulder.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:19:26

No, I mean, I learned a lot and have been able to navigate some of the issues that I had last time and haven't had to deal with them, so knock wood.

Janine Adams: 00:19:46

Well, can't wait till you're back on to normal ground.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:19:50

Yeah, me too. Me too. Well, physical therapy starts next week.

Janine Adams: 00:19:56

That's great.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:19:57

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:19:58

Oh, sounds painful, though.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:20:01

Yeah, it's not fun.

Janine Adams: 00:20:08

Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:20:09

But it'll be good. It's good to move forward, and it's good to sort of recognize progress where you can find it.

Janine Adams: 00:20:18

Yeah. Right. That whole message of celebrating progress, not success.

I mean, don't wait until you're successful to celebrate and mark all these many, many milestones that you have.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:20:33

Because I'm six to 12 months away from what anyone would call success with. I mean, with my shoulder anyway.

Janine Adams: 00:20:42

Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:20:44

Just clarify there.

Janine Adams: 00:20:46

You have so many successes that don't involve your shoulder, but, yeah, lots and lots of little successes around your shoulder. Like when you make it through the night without your brace on, that'll be a big deal. Worthy of celebration.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:21:00

Yeah. You know what? Here are the. The two things that I am so excited to be able to do. And this will tell you where my expectations are to put my hair up.

I can't. You can't put your hair up with one hand.

And I, like, watch these YouTube videos of people with one arm putting their hair up, giving step by step instructions. And normally I can figure these things out. I cannot for the life of me figure it out.

Janine Adams: 00:21:39

Oh, how funny. Well, then you don't have to, because you luckily will have two hands, so eventually you'll be able to go back.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:21:47

Yeah, eventually I'll be able to do it, but. So being able to put my hair up and.

And to put my necklace on, you know, I wear my necklace every day and I haven't worn it for five and a half weeks, and you take it off the morning of surgery and, oh, no, I can't sleep with it.

Janine Adams: 00:22:06

Can't sleep in it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you do that. That is. Imagine.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:22:11

Does it look like it.

Janine Adams: 00:22:13

Something was different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what? I thought you were going to say, Shannon.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:22:17

No.

Janine Adams: 00:22:17

That you were looking forward to giving yourself a high five.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:22:21

I am looking forward to giving myself a high five right now. I have to go like this. I have to like that might be worth going to the video for people. Well, it's so great to see you.

Janine Adams: 00:22:36

Me too.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:22:37

And to record a new episode. And I'm really looking forward to being back on a regular schedule. Yes. And we'd love to hear from our listeners and watchers.

You know what, what's thrown you for a loop lately and how are you embracing Good Enough to move through it? You can let us know on social media. We're on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube at getting to Good Enough. You can email us@gettingtogoodenoughmail.com.

. GTGE. That's: 4843

Janine Adams: 00:23:27

I think that's it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:23:28

That is it. I always think that there's more, but there's not. There's never more than that. That's plenty.

So until next time, this is Shannon Wilkinson in Portland, Orego, and Jeanine Adams.

Janine Adams: 00:23:44

In St. Louis, Missouri.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:23:46

And we hope that Good Enough is getting easier for you. Thanks for joining us on Getting to Good Enough. We hope you heard something that makes your life just a little bit easier.

If you did, leave us a review or share this with someone who's looking for their own version of Good Enough.

Janine Adams: 00:24:02

Thanks for listening. See you soon. We have a Getting to good enough YouTube login.

And one day I was in there doing something with the social media and all those videos were in the sidebar of of putting your hair up with one hand. So you must have been logged in as Getting to good Enough while you were watching looking for those video.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:24:37

That's awesome. I had no idea.

Janine Adams: 00:24:39

Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:24:39

Oh, my God. That's so funny.