After nearly four weeks of not posting due to shoulder surgery I am almost back. I am saying almost because even though I can type very well again, I am spending a fair bit of time every day on physical therapy. That is time I would have spent writing and, well, something has got to give. So for now I am planning on one post per week instead of the usual three, but let’s see where it goes.

In the meantime though I want to thank everyone who kindly reached out, inquired how things were going, and wished me a speedy recovery. I appreciated every note! Hearing from friends and strangers helped a lot, especially in the early days post surgery when I was quite miserable. If you ever consider shoulder surgery for rotator cuff, just mentally prepare yourself for a really rough first week. You may wind up questioning whether it was a good idea, I certainly did. And while I am only four weeks out now I can feel improvements every day which makes me optimistic. 

If you care for a bit more background here is what happened. We went skiing in March to Verbier, Switzerland. On the first day in poor visibility I misjudged the distance from an off-piste run down to a cat track and there were about 5 feet of vertical. I hit the cat track hard, double ejected and pancaked into some very hard packed snow. I could hear a group of people standing near by go “Ouch.” I got up put my skis on an skied off but my left wrist and right shoulder definitely hurt. I skied the rest of the day but got fairly little sleep at night as my shoulder was throbbing. Given the great conditions though, I just took a lot of Advil the next morning and wound up skiing the entire five days we were there.

When I got back to New York my shoulder continued to hurt and I had fairly limited range of motion when trying to lift my right arm. I was hoping the whole thing would just go away with time but after six weeks without improvement I finally caved decided to see a doctor. Easier said then done because my insurance company wanted me to first get an x-ray before approving an MRI. The medical reasons for this are dubious at best and I decided to pay for the MRI out of pocket (you can get a much better rate when paying on the spot, one of the great distortions of our medical system).

With MRI in hand I went to two different doctors and got the same feedback: a mostly torn

After nearly four weeks of not posting due to shoulder surgery I am almost back. I am saying almost because even though I can type very well again, I am spending a fair bit of time every day on physical therapy. That is time I would have spent writing and, well, something has got to give. So for now I am planning on one post per week instead of the usual three, but let’s see where it goes.

In the meantime though I want to thank everyone who kindly reached out, inquired how things were going, and wished me a speedy recovery. I appreciated every note! Hearing from friends and strangers helped a lot, especially in the early days post surgery when I was quite miserable. If you ever consider shoulder surgery for rotator cuff, just mentally prepare yourself for a really rough first week. You may wind up questioning whether it was a good idea, I certainly did. And while I am only four weeks out now I can feel improvements every day which makes me optimistic. 

If you care for a bit more background here is what happened. We went skiing in March to Verbier, Switzerland. On the first day in poor visibility I misjudged the distance from an off-piste run down to a cat track and there were about 5 feet of vertical. I hit the cat track hard, double ejected and pancaked into some very hard packed snow. I could hear a group of people standing near by go “Ouch.” I got up put my skis on an skied off but my left wrist and right shoulder definitely hurt. I skied the rest of the day but got fairly little sleep at night as my shoulder was throbbing. Given the great conditions though, I just took a lot of Advil the next morning and wound up skiing the entire five days we were there.

When I got back to New York my shoulder continued to hurt and I had fairly limited range of motion when trying to lift my right arm. I was hoping the whole thing would just go away with time but after six weeks without improvement I finally caved decided to see a doctor. Easier said then done because my insurance company wanted me to first get an x-ray before approving an MRI. The medical reasons for this are dubious at best and I decided to pay for the MRI out of pocket (you can get a much better rate when paying on the spot, one of the great distortions of our medical system).

With MRI in hand I went to two different doctors and got the same feedback: a mostly torn