A clue

I think I figured part of it out.  Just part of it.  Maybe, but I could be wrong.  I often am. 

It is not that I can't lift 10 lbs because I lack the strength.  It is because the lifting tightens the muscles in my neck.  Each lift tightens them a bit more.  Since I don't have any small weights yet I have been using a soup can.  It is what I have.  It weighs a whole 19 ounces.  It looks like it might be a good idea to start with 1 lb and 3 oz instead of the 2-3 lbs limit I was given.  After 30 reps of several different arm exercises my neck hurts.  It is a deep ache.  It leaves me feeling shaky and light headed.  I get the same feeling if I squat or bend over for very long.  This makes it difficult at the grocery store when I want more than one thing from the bottom shelf.  So things that put or build pressure in the neck are my challenge.  So I can lift 10 lbs just not several times in a row.  I can bend over and get the frying pan out of the bottom cabinet.  But I can't stay down like that and rearrange the whole cabinet.  I have noticed that if I focus on relaxing the neck and just using the muscles in my arm that I don't hurt as bad.  Isolate, it gets the job done better.  The neck is still uncomfortable afterwards but it is not hurting as much. 
This is the part of the healing that I was clueless about.  I thought that like some of the other surgeries that I have had once the area healed I would be good to go.  A few weeks to regain strength and I would be back to normal.  I couldn't have been more wrong or clueless.  I am a weakling.  The limits of what I am capable of frustrate me.  I will get busy trying to accomplish a task and will forget that I am gimpy.  Because I feel good enough most of the time.  I can get everything in the shopping cart.  But then I have to get it out of the cart at the check out stand.  Then I have to get it in the car.  Then I have to get it out of the car.  I tried to do the shopping once by myself.  Yea, I am not able to do that yet.  If it is just a few items, no problem.  But no way am I gonna try to do the big trip by myself again until I can work out with 3 lbs at a time with out hurting.  I think it might be a few more weeks before I get there.  At least a few.....