My Rehabilitation: Reflecting on the Movements I Can No Longer Do August 24, 2026 (Monday) Reiwa8

Today was my last outpatient rehabilitation session at Dogo Onsen Hospital.

I had four 80-minute rehabilitation sessions. I had a very good therapist who examined my shoulder and arm from many different angles.

What particularly stayed with me today was thinking about what “rehabilitation” really means.

From the age of 49 to 51, I attended an acupuncture and moxibustion school at night for three years. At that time, the school was called Tokai Rehabilitation College.

During the daytime, mainly young students studied rehabilitation there. There was also a judo therapy department and a judo hall. The acupuncture and moxibustion department had both daytime and evening courses, and it was the only department that offered an evening course.

At the time, I never thought very deeply about the fact that the word “rehabilitation” was part of the school's name.

Now, after breaking my arm, I have become a patient receiving rehabilitation from a physical therapist.

Today, the therapist told me that he had been ill as a child and had become interested in becoming a doctor, but eventually chose another path and decided to become a physical therapist.

I found it fascinating that he chose to become a physical therapist based on his own experiences, and that now I am receiving rehabilitation from him.

When I moved to Matsuyama, I closed everything I had been doing from home: my acupuncture and moxibustion clinic, my English salon, and my English teaching work.

I wrote apology emails to everyone, finished my work in February, and moved to Matsuyama.

Once I arrived here, I thought I would look for some kind of work while going to a gym.

Since I do not drive a car, I often fell and scraped myself when I used an electric two-wheeled bicycle, so my family suggested that I get an electric three-wheeled bicycle instead.

I practiced and finally became able to ride it by myself.

Then, about a month and a half later, I fell while trying to go to a museum by myself, and I fractured my left arm on June 18.

I had planned to start going to a gym in July. I had already decided which gym I wanted to attend and was thinking about signing up.

But everything came to a stop.

I could no longer ride my electric three-wheeled bicycle, and I could no longer go to the gym.

So I started working on the questions from the Registered Sales Clerk examination, which I had been interested in for some time.

At first, I looked at the 40 questions in the afternoon section. They were filled with technical terms, and I thought, “This is impossible.”

Even so, my husband told me, “Why don't you give it a try?” He also agreed to pay the examination fee for me.

When I said, “There are only about three months left,” he said, “Just think of it as practice. Give it a try even if you might fail. If you don't do it this year, you won't do it next year either.”

I thought he was right.

I had broken my arm and could not go to the gym. I could not spend all my time at home doing rehabilitation exercises either.

So now I am reading the katakana terms that appear in the Registered Sales Clerk examination, one by one, as if they were some kind of spell.

And today, while receiving rehabilitation, I found myself looking back over my life since moving here.

There are still several things that I cannot do with my body.

For example, the arms of Gomukhasana.
I will add a photo above.

If my right hand is the lower hand, I can internally rotate my right shoulder and bring my hand quite far up behind my back.

When my left hand is the upper hand, I can also externally rotate my left shoulder and bring my arm down from behind my head toward my back. It is not completely back to normal yet, but it has come quite close. My hands are almost able to reach each other.

However, when my left hand is the lower hand, I can hardly perform the movement of internally rotating my left shoulder and bringing my hand upward from behind my back.

The therapist told me that if I try to do it too soon, it could put too much strain on the fractured area. But he also said that there is no guarantee that I will be able to do it if I simply wait longer.

When you fracture a bone, it is not only the bone that is injured. The surrounding blood vessels, muscles, and other tissues can also be damaged, and the surrounding tissues may become stiff as they heal.

When I heard that explanation, I thought, “That makes sense.”

I have always been physically flexible, and even in yoga, I had been able to do movements like the arms of Gomukhasana on both sides.

So it was a little shocking that I cannot do them now.

But this is not a movement that is essential to my survival.

Whether I can do it or not, I am not going to die.

So I will simply see how far I can go.

I think that is my rehabilitation now.

There are also some things in daily life that require a little ingenuity.

When putting on a T-shirt, it is easier and less painful if I put it over my head first, then put in my left arm, and finally my right arm. When taking it off, I also have to take it over my head first, then remove my left arm and my right arm.

When putting on a hoodie, if I put my right arm in first, it becomes difficult to bring my left arm around at the end. It can be easier to make sure no one is behind me, swing the hoodie around to my back, and put both arms into it.

In the bath, I still cannot properly dry my back with a bath towel or scrub my back with a towel. My left hand does not yet have enough strength.

When I am asked, “Is there anything you are having trouble with?” I cannot say that these things are difficult enough to prevent me from living normally.

However, things that I used to do without thinking now require a little ingenuity.

I think that is also part of rehabilitation.

Today was the end of my outpatient rehabilitation.

From August 28, I will be hospitalized and will receive rehabilitation from a different therapist.

I wish I could have continued with the therapist who has been treating me until today, so I am disappointed about that.

But he told me, “I will tell the therapist on the sixth floor everything, so don't worry.”

From the age of 49 to 51, I was the student learning acupuncture and moxibustion at a rehabilitation college.

Now, at the age of 68, I have become the patient receiving rehabilitation at Dogo Onsen Hospital.

Life is strange.

The life I imagined when I moved to Matsuyama changed completely because of my fracture.

My work, going to the gym, and going out on my electric three-wheeled bicycle all came to a complete stop.

Instead, I discovered rehabilitation, started studying for the Registered Sales Clerk examination, and began writing down what happens in my everyday life.

And today, on the last day of my outpatient rehabilitation, everything that has happened so far suddenly seemed to connect.

Rather than thinking only about whether I can return to the person I was before,

I think I should look at how far I can go from where I am now.

The word “rehabilitation” means restoring a person's ability to live their life again.

I will take it one step at a time.

#Rehabilitation
#DogoOnsenHospital
#RecoveryFromAFracture
#Gomukhasana
#ShoulderRehabilitation
#DailyLifeIngenuity
#RegisteredSalesClerkExam
#AcupunctureSchool
#TurningPointInLife
#August242026