Yes, Your Recovery Could Get Expensive

Elsewhere I’ve recommended you extend your Sabbatical as long as you can, equip a home gym, and supplementing your insurance-provided Physical Therapist with a trainer and other healing arts practitioners.  If you’re having a joint replacement or other similarly major surgery, I recommend having months of sessions with the trio of chiropractor, personal trainer and massage therapist. I bet your eyes are getting as big as saucers at the likely cost of all this. Stay with me…

I’ll address the WHY first.

• I want this experience to not suck for you, and taking these measures are insurance against that. A range of possibilities lie ahead of you, from an incomplete recovery (more common than you’d want to know, PTs tell me) to feeling better than you can remember (more mobile, stronger, more vital) and having new healthy habits that you can sustain for the coming decades of your life.  Getting the kind of support I am recommending (and doing your work, too) creates the conditions for the latter outcome.

Certainly there are ways to economize.

If you choose a local rehab facility for training, they likely have all the equipment you need, and will allow you to visit as often as you like between sessions. So there- you didn’t have to equip a home gym, except perhaps a stretching mat and a few workout/stretching aids. And if you master the Melt Method hand and foot treatments (the names don’t do it justice- it releases all kinds of pain and tension from the whole body), then you could do without some of the visits to the massage therapist.

But you’re still looking at some thousands of dollars of out-of-pocket expenses. Where is it going to come from?  If you have money socked away for a rainy day, I suggest that you notice that it’s raining now. Having a positive and transformational experience rather than letting this be one of the worst experiences of your life?  How much is that worth? (NY Times article on Money vs Experiences)

But what if your sock drawer is light on cash?

Maybe you have family you can lean on.  But what if you don’t?  Well, someone in my own life (my own massage therapist) was in that position, and so I organized a fundraiser for her. In one month, we raised $10,000 from 61 donors. You can see the actual completed fundraiser page here. I’m providing you with a more detailed plan for how to do this for yourself here.

And… I can help.

If you choose to work with me as your surgery success coach, I can help with the strategy and big donor asks, and give guidance to whomever you find to manage the rest.