Recovering

Slowly.  VERY slowly, I am recovering.

Did I mention slowly?  Good.

Maybe I’ll learn some patience from all of this.

I went to my first post-surgical follow-up visit last week.  Things are progressing just about as well as the surgeon expected they would.  Slowly.

He told me that the three priorities after a SLAP-tear repair are 1) healing, 2) range of motion, and 3) strengthening.  We’re working on priority 1 right now.  Slowly.

Priority 1 is the reason for the shoulder sling.  The sling mostly immobilizes my shoulder, especially keeping it from moving in ways that might undo what the surgery corrected.  If I’m not careful, the bone anchors can pull out, causing even more pain and making a re-do of the surgery medically necessary.  I do NOT want that.  So I get to continue wearing my shoulder sling night and day until my next follow-up appointment, which is six weeks from today.  Six excruciatingly long weeks.  After that, I’ll start doing physical therapy to regain range of motion.

I’ve started sleeping in my bed again.  I use a lot of pillows to support my arm and to keep me from rolling over onto my left shoulder.  I’m not sued to sleeping on my back, but now that I’m back in my bed again, I think I’m sleeping better.  I only woke up once during the night last night.  I believe that I actually slept for almost 7 hours.

I get to take my sling off several times a day to do very small exercises that will help out in the long run.  It’s amazing how small the range of motion in my shoulder is, and how little the surgeon wants me to do with my shoulder.

The worst pain since the initial pain of the surgery diminished has actually been in my elbow, not my shoulder.  The ulnar nerve (the one that you hit when you hit your “funny bone”) doesn’t like being restricted and doesn’t like the constant pressure from my shoulder sling, and it has gotten inflamed.  The exercises, along with ibuprofen and lots of icing, have calmed that down, and hopefully, I can stay ahead of that inflammation and pain.  I seriously couldn’t handle six more weeks of wearing the sling if it meant that my elbow, lower bicep, and upper forearm would continue to be in that much pain.

But things are also becoming more and more normal again as the pain recedes and as I get more and more used to doing things one-handed.  I’m hoping that live moves into a regular routine again, something that could hopefully make the next six weeks pass more quickly.

From all accounts, I shouldn’t be looking forward to the next phase of recovery, because physical therapy on a shoulder is pretty darned painful.  You will, of course, be able to read all about that here in a few weeks.

For those of you not squeamish, here are some pictures from surgery:  http://misterme.com/shoulder.jpg

The  top-left picture shows the cause of the soreness I was having before the accident on the river.  That’s fraying on my rotator cuff tendon.  The surgeon cleaned that up in addition to fixing the torn Labrum.

The middle-right picture is the best view of the tear.  That gap about 2/3 of the way from the right shouldn’t be there.  The bottom-left shows more of the tear, being pushed easily aside with a surgical instrument.  The bottom-right picture is the “after” picture showing the sutures holding down my Labrum.  The sutures are attached to the bone anchors that are in the process of healing.