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 Supraspinatus tendon and a bunch of damage to the Glenoid labrum. Both required surgery to fix. The procedure itself was done at an outpatient facility and I was able to spend the night in my own bed (mostly not sleeping). Pro-tip: start taking the pain killers right away and don’t wait for the nerve block to wear off. Because of the nerve block you don’t feel any pain but when it wears off the pain is excruciating and pain killers take some time to work (file under: important note to self, should I have to do this again some time).
Now off to do my physical therapy exercises. And: Happy Father’s day to all fathers who made it to the end of this post!
