I elected to have it surgically repaired, and this happened less than two weeks ago. The right shoulder is tight but not painful. I have a right arm pit again. I can work and get by, filling sippy cups, tying shoes, carrying buckets of tadpoles and catfish, and I'm thankful for that.
I'm playing more wiffle ball with the boys, getting good at throwing left handed.
Today Dr. Deluca (at OIP) told me that the surgery took one hour and forty five minutes, not forty five minutes as I had thought. After he opened me up, he spent 20 minutes draining fluid and blood from the area before he could get moving.
There was significant tearing of the muscle tissue and a complete rupture of the pectoral tendon from the humerus (upper arm bone). His first attempt to unwrap the muscle tissue and pull it back resulted in greater tearing, so he sutured that baby up. He scraped the bone and periosteum (connective tissue covering) of the humerus to cause bleeding and pinned the pectoral tendon to that point with two small staples. He sewed up an inner layer and glued my skin together.
I woke up from surgery feeling groggy. I've had little to no pain since.
Dr. Deluca kindly reminded me that healing of a tendon-bone interface cannot be rushed.
I've quickly gone from being thankful that I can work and function well to being anxious for a fix. For at least 8 weeks there will be no back flips. And no front flips. Not even any side flips. No squats or anything that involves climbing or hanging.Nothing fun or awesome and nothing that makes you awesome. I simply cannot afford to fall toward my right arm. I can ride a bike like a civilized human, but what fun is that?
So here's to the fear of falling! And not doing something stupid that pulls those staples off the humerus!
No comments:
Post a Comment