My body has traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Out of service or Time for Side B

By the time you read this, I probably won't be blogging for a while.
If you've read my profile you know that a few years ago I "broke".
After 4 months of Physical therapy for loose shoulders, arthritis and trying to correct all the compensations my body created as a result, I elected to have surgery to correct the bone spurs and minor arthritis.
Simple procedure. 30 minutes, 3 days in the sling and a few more weeks of PT. Good to go.
2 hrs later and the doc found that the labrum was almost torn in 1/2 and scarred over. The major pain was the bone popping through the hole in the middle.
So he did what was called a SLAP tear repair,subcromial decompression and ground off the spurs. Drilled an anchor in the bone, stitched it up and did the originally planned work. It's considered major reconstruction apparently.
Now it was 6 weeks in the sling and 8 more months visiting the PT. And it was agonizing.
You're never sure if what you're doing is the right or wrong thing to help the recovery. Is that good pain or bad pain?
Now it's 2.5 yrs later. Is it better? Absolutely. Mechanically better than nature gave me(genetically loose sockets).
Am I pain free? No, but reasonably finally in the past 6 months. And they're much more in place. I still can't lift heavy over my head but I'm slowly getting stronger again.

Well.......now it's time to do the right side the same.
At the time I asked if I'd need to do the right and the advicse was that with good home therapy work (and I have been very diligent since surgery), often the other side will become stable enoug h to not need it.
At the 2yr mark I realized, it's not getting any better. It is much much improved but still considerable (and increasing) pain and in fact limiting my work tocontinue stabilizing the other side.
So since my emergency appendicitis this spring has blown all my medical deductables and out of pocket, what the heck. Time for side B. Actually, I had made up my mind before finding out it was fully covered.

So Tuesday morning we find out just how bad the right side is compared to the left. I'm at least now mentallly prepared going in. Just hoping the recovery will be much better, and it should. Overall most of my compensations are over and the shoulder is stable.
Only 3 months of twice weekly PT.

Since I won't be swinging ablade for a while, we planned out one last day of feasting and cutting for Sunday with Mushtaq, Chris, Cole, Janet and Roberta. Enough to last three months I guess.
Mushtaq made Navaho taco's from Buffalo with frybread and Roberta made seafood chowder.





some but not all the victems.



















































































































2 comments:

IRTBrian said...

Sorry to hear about that Steve. Rest up, get better and get back to what you love to do!

Brian VanCise

Steve Perry said...

I know how even minor brushes with joint and muscle stuff can screw with your head, so my best wishes for as smooth a course as possible.

Use the time, if you can, to come up ways to compensate. Saw a bit last night on a gun show of a guy demonstrating best carry in a wheelchair, and how to shoot somebody behind you if you only had one working hand, kinds of hardware and all.

Holler if we can help.