Shoulder Surgery

Well, tomorrow is the big day. I go in for my rotator cuff surgery.

It's about dang time. It happened weeks ago. X rays, and MRI, consultations with a couple of orthopaedic specialists, and it's finally scheduled.

The surgeon says, based on the MRI, I probably tore the same tendon sometime in the past. I'm not surprised; I've had trouble with this shoulder for years. He said it's rare to see that in someone so young.

So, just in case you've lost track: I have a 46 year old body, with 65-year-old lymph nodes, and 70-year-old supraspinatus tendons.

On the plus side, I'm in good company: the Wikipedia page for Rotator Cuff says the injury is common in people with jobs that require repetitive motions, including cheerleaders, football quarterbacks, and fast bowlers in cricket. So, basically, I'm down with the popular crowd. It also affects orchestra conductors and drummers, so I hang with the music nerds, too. Really, this injury makes me one of those cool kids who gets along with everyone. I'm the Prom King over here. So I've got that going for me.

One slightly weird thing that happened last week: the ortho wanted me to get clearance from a pulmonary specialist, to make sure my asthma wouldn't be a problem during surgery (it won't be). I was referred to Dr. S, who, it turned out, was the same pulmonary specialist that I saw a few months before my diagnosis. A few months before that, I had pneumonia, and was still having some breathing issues. He did a CT scan, and saw a swollen node and a cloudy patch on my lung. He said one of them was about a 5% chance of cancer, and the other only about 10%. That was really the beginning of my cancer journey. So, that was nice to see him again, I guess....

Recovery for this surgery is going to be slooooooow. Six weeks in a sling, for starters. So, as much as I've slowed down with posts in the last couple of months, you can probably expect it so get even a little bit slower. But it won't stop completely -- I have a few articles in reserve that I hope to write about soon, and I'll certainly keep reading whatever new Follicular Lymphoma information I can find. And of course, I'll try to provide some shoulder updates when I can. I got myself some nice voice recognition software, and I've been practicing with it over the last couple of weeks. So the blog will certainly continue.

Wish me luck, everyone. See you soon.