When I last wrote I told you about my impending MRI. It happened. The good news is that there was no preparation for the procedure, unlike the unpleasant week's worth of prep for "The Procedure Which Must Not Be Named." Yes, the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) is a marvelous machine that is designed to turn exceptionally brave people into quivering shells of their former selves...but at least you don't have to spend the night before it in the bathroom. I survived and now I am on the other side.
Let me start at the beginning....maybe. My shoulder hurts. I don't know why my shoulder hurts. It just hurts. It has hurt for a long time. A really long time. It has felt this bad for about a year. I know what some of you are thinking, and as my son would say, "You know they have people trained to help you when you're hurt." At the risk of having to turn in my "I Don't Need To Go To The Doctor" badge from my Man Meetings, I have been to the doctor...lots of them! (Well three is a lot for a guy)
I admit that I let it go for a long time. I thought it was just sore. I slept on it wrong. I bumped it somehow. Or possibly worse, "I just won't move it that way." I honestly couldn't remember an event that would have made it hurt like this and I have been to doctors enough to know that if you don't tell them why something hurts they'll most likely tell you that it is just a sprain/strain/pain and you should ice it then put heat on it and it will most likely get better in a few weeks. So I waited a few weeks.
And a few more....
And a few more.......
And a lot more..............
The list of things I was choosing not to do got a little bigger every week or so. Volunteering to the the end-zone referee in a PeeWee football game was first to go. One raising both arms for a touchdown and I would have been incapacitated for hours. Getting things off of high shelves was next to go. This one hurt my pride. I was once the go to guy in the top shelf game! No longer would people seek me out because what good is having the big crock pot, the Christmas decorations, or the turkey platter if you had to suffer through whimpering and wincing to get them. Jake, who is still shorter than me (depending on shoe selection and hair style) is top (shelf) dog around here now.
The 'cannot do' list was getting longer until finally I was adding things to it like turning on the light switch and sleeping. Off to the doctor I went. In my mind I'm ready to take care of this. I have done the wait and see method to healing and it's not working. The doctor should see that I do not come in for any old thing. Let's move! I walked out with the advice to ice, then heat, then rest....then in two weeks...call for physical therapy. OK, that's at least something. I've had good results from PT before on other issues so I was all in.
I went in weekly for a while. He measured how far my arm could move and recorded the pained faces I made when he made me go too far so they could all have a laugh watching it at the Physical Therapist Christmas party. (all right, not really, but still) I remember one week I had a break from school and he wanted to see me three days in a row. I went in and he was able to get me to move a whole 3 degrees past where I started. He thought progress! I thought I was just getting able to handle the pain better and that I really wasn't seeing improvement.
Enter the specialist! I had heard of these guys before. Hooray! They have the good stuff. Boo! The good stuff comes from a needle. I hate needles. Another problem is that I have heard of this stuff, cortisone, for years and the people who described it to me didn't do it any favors. I knew one person who vividly described her experience of getting the shot while laying down and saying that she would have done anything to crawl away from it. I heard adjectives like burning, uncomfortable, and stinging...but I also heard adjectives like magic. All right let's try it. I psyched myself up for the worst thing in the world and was treated to a whole lot of nothing. He said, "I'm done" before I even thought he got started. Then he said, "Don't use it for a week." Ha! You don't know me doc! I'm tough! I can handle anything! Have I told you how I have put up with this pain for so long!? Hit me with your best shot! So I went home and decided to make the bed...using my newly shot arm. Oh that's what you meant doc! Unimaginable pain by just moving a little? I understand now.
So I spent the week walking around with my left arm very much like a salami in a nylon. It just swung willy nilly this way and that and it felt fine, as long as I didn't use a single muscle in it. After a week I decided to take it out for a test drive. I raised it a bit. So far so good. A bit higher. Still good. I even did some wild and crazy things like sleeping and washing my hair with both hands! I was healed! Healed I say! Something in the back of my mind reminded me of another adjective that EVERYONE used when describing the cortisone shots...temporary. Nah, I can see that this is the ticket! I just needed a week of doing nothing with the head start of the shot. I'm good to go! For precisely one week. I was back to square one...and I still had no idea why I was hurting so bad.
This was not like me. I used to be able to use both arms. I remember being able to do actual physical labor. Then it hit me...I think I know. In Mexico we helped build a roof on a church. To build this roof we needed to place beams across two walls. They were gigantic! Without describing the entire process they leaned them onto one wall and pushed one end. The other end went straight into the air and then started falling down. Two of us needed to stand arms outstretched to catch these 20 foot long 6X8 beams that were falling toward them while standing on folding chairs...about 25 times! When I called the doc and told him that a) the shot stopped working ridiculously quickly, and b) I knew what caused it, he scheduled an MRI.
"Do you work with metal?" No
"Do you have any implants?" No
"Are you gonna be ok if we stuff your XXL body into a tube made for L?" I beg your pardon?
Well, maybe the questionnaire didn't say that exactly but it should have.
I was able to fit my broad shoulders into this tube only by reaching my good arm across my body and holding the "I can't take it anymore" button on the other side of my body. I got to stay stuffed in this machine for about 45 very noisy minutes. I never squeezed the panic button but completely understood why people would. And a few days later I found out, I have a tear that will probably require surgery. That should be fun. I can't wait to write about it...using only my right arm.
Let me start at the beginning....maybe. My shoulder hurts. I don't know why my shoulder hurts. It just hurts. It has hurt for a long time. A really long time. It has felt this bad for about a year. I know what some of you are thinking, and as my son would say, "You know they have people trained to help you when you're hurt." At the risk of having to turn in my "I Don't Need To Go To The Doctor" badge from my Man Meetings, I have been to the doctor...lots of them! (Well three is a lot for a guy)
I admit that I let it go for a long time. I thought it was just sore. I slept on it wrong. I bumped it somehow. Or possibly worse, "I just won't move it that way." I honestly couldn't remember an event that would have made it hurt like this and I have been to doctors enough to know that if you don't tell them why something hurts they'll most likely tell you that it is just a sprain/strain/pain and you should ice it then put heat on it and it will most likely get better in a few weeks. So I waited a few weeks.
And a few more....
And a few more.......
And a lot more..............
The list of things I was choosing not to do got a little bigger every week or so. Volunteering to the the end-zone referee in a PeeWee football game was first to go. One raising both arms for a touchdown and I would have been incapacitated for hours. Getting things off of high shelves was next to go. This one hurt my pride. I was once the go to guy in the top shelf game! No longer would people seek me out because what good is having the big crock pot, the Christmas decorations, or the turkey platter if you had to suffer through whimpering and wincing to get them. Jake, who is still shorter than me (depending on shoe selection and hair style) is top (shelf) dog around here now.
The 'cannot do' list was getting longer until finally I was adding things to it like turning on the light switch and sleeping. Off to the doctor I went. In my mind I'm ready to take care of this. I have done the wait and see method to healing and it's not working. The doctor should see that I do not come in for any old thing. Let's move! I walked out with the advice to ice, then heat, then rest....then in two weeks...call for physical therapy. OK, that's at least something. I've had good results from PT before on other issues so I was all in.
I went in weekly for a while. He measured how far my arm could move and recorded the pained faces I made when he made me go too far so they could all have a laugh watching it at the Physical Therapist Christmas party. (all right, not really, but still) I remember one week I had a break from school and he wanted to see me three days in a row. I went in and he was able to get me to move a whole 3 degrees past where I started. He thought progress! I thought I was just getting able to handle the pain better and that I really wasn't seeing improvement.
Enter the specialist! I had heard of these guys before. Hooray! They have the good stuff. Boo! The good stuff comes from a needle. I hate needles. Another problem is that I have heard of this stuff, cortisone, for years and the people who described it to me didn't do it any favors. I knew one person who vividly described her experience of getting the shot while laying down and saying that she would have done anything to crawl away from it. I heard adjectives like burning, uncomfortable, and stinging...but I also heard adjectives like magic. All right let's try it. I psyched myself up for the worst thing in the world and was treated to a whole lot of nothing. He said, "I'm done" before I even thought he got started. Then he said, "Don't use it for a week." Ha! You don't know me doc! I'm tough! I can handle anything! Have I told you how I have put up with this pain for so long!? Hit me with your best shot! So I went home and decided to make the bed...using my newly shot arm. Oh that's what you meant doc! Unimaginable pain by just moving a little? I understand now.
So I spent the week walking around with my left arm very much like a salami in a nylon. It just swung willy nilly this way and that and it felt fine, as long as I didn't use a single muscle in it. After a week I decided to take it out for a test drive. I raised it a bit. So far so good. A bit higher. Still good. I even did some wild and crazy things like sleeping and washing my hair with both hands! I was healed! Healed I say! Something in the back of my mind reminded me of another adjective that EVERYONE used when describing the cortisone shots...temporary. Nah, I can see that this is the ticket! I just needed a week of doing nothing with the head start of the shot. I'm good to go! For precisely one week. I was back to square one...and I still had no idea why I was hurting so bad.
This was not like me. I used to be able to use both arms. I remember being able to do actual physical labor. Then it hit me...I think I know. In Mexico we helped build a roof on a church. To build this roof we needed to place beams across two walls. They were gigantic! Without describing the entire process they leaned them onto one wall and pushed one end. The other end went straight into the air and then started falling down. Two of us needed to stand arms outstretched to catch these 20 foot long 6X8 beams that were falling toward them while standing on folding chairs...about 25 times! When I called the doc and told him that a) the shot stopped working ridiculously quickly, and b) I knew what caused it, he scheduled an MRI.
"Do you work with metal?" No
"Do you have any implants?" No
"Are you gonna be ok if we stuff your XXL body into a tube made for L?" I beg your pardon?
Well, maybe the questionnaire didn't say that exactly but it should have.
I was able to fit my broad shoulders into this tube only by reaching my good arm across my body and holding the "I can't take it anymore" button on the other side of my body. I got to stay stuffed in this machine for about 45 very noisy minutes. I never squeezed the panic button but completely understood why people would. And a few days later I found out, I have a tear that will probably require surgery. That should be fun. I can't wait to write about it...using only my right arm.
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