That is what my anesthesiologist (would you believe I didn't even need spell checker for that? lucky guess) told me right before putting me out. Thanks for the tip.
If you remember, a couple years ago
I had a little bike accident. At the time I complained of my arm hurting and thought that was that. Well, about a year later I was playing basketball and had a subluxation. Think of that like a shoulder dislocation except it pops right back in. Good times.
I went to the doctor, got an MRI, found out I had a posterior labral tear, did physical therapy, and was told by a doctor I'd be crazy to operate on it. Let's just say it looked like this doctor was used to treating people way past retirement. The image below shows a superior labral tear, I think, mine was in the back.
At any rate, after that I continued to play basketball and was usually fine. But every few months I'd have another subluxation event. I probably had another three or four at least since the first one, with the last one coming from merely reaching for a loose ball. I'd had enough. I'm still pretty good at basketball, at least compared to the other middle aged Mormon men in my ward (I know) :-) and I'm not ready to give it up. I also felt instability in the shoulder when doing things like pulling on the handlebars while riding. So I went to another doctor to fix it.
First of all, a new fact for me, it's called
arthroscopic, not
orthoscopic. Secondly, I really chose the wrong time. It's nice out and I'm itching to get outside doing things. Anyway, back to the story.
(I know this is WAY too long and nobody will read it, mostly this is my form of a journal for family history reasons :-)
The day of the surgery Alicia dropped me off and picked me up a few hours later. The medicine they used to put me out worked just fine. This was supposed to be a fairly straightforward procedure, 2-4 weeks in a sling, back on the bike in 4 weeks, etc. But he got in there and fixed the labral tear but then "noticed that it was pretty loose in there so I had to tighten things up a bit." What does that mean?
I'll tell you what it means. It's called a capsulorrhaphy. The shoulder is wrapped in a capsule and that was too loose. So he had to stitch it tighter. I'm not sure but I presume that means cutting it too. So I feel vindicated that there really was a problem but bummed out that that seems to significantly add to recovery time.
After the procedure Alicia got me (after waiting an hour or two because I was out of it with those meds). They sent me home with a sling (thankfully not a bumper, just a plain old sling), some meds, and GameReady. This thing pumps ice water all around your shoulder and is pure heaven after surgery. I cried the day they took it away (okay, not really, but it is nice).
That
is me in the picture if you were wondering. They also put a plastic tube (catheter) directly into the shoulder joint with some medicine on the outside that would pump it straight into the joint every hour or two.
That night I started on the oxycodone they gave me. Of course, the stuff makes you feel great. But I couldn't stand the side effects (nausea and well...constipation). So I was mostly off of that by the next morning, took it one other night. After that I used ibuprofen.
The pain really hasn't been that bad, sleeping was tough for a few weeks. The shoulder/arm is still tender and I can't move it certain ways, but I'm still in the sling and am not supposed to anyway. Surgery was on a Monday and I went back to work on Thursday, but probably shouldn't have, that week it hurt to move my arm out enough to type. Now that feels fine.
It's an odd recovery. I am not to do any physical therapy, just simple pendulum exercises. I guess it takes 4-6 weeks for the torn labrum to re-attach to the scapula. But the doctor just told me that in another couple of weeks (6 weeks post-op) that I should take the sling off altogether, all at once, and just be cautious (no lifting more than a couple pounds or reaching in extreme ways). He said I might be one of those guys who doesn't even need physical therapy. The shoulder feels fine, it does feel unstable at times and I told him that. I hear from others that's natural though, the weakened muscles aren't strong enough to hold it firm. He said he'd probably give me some exercises in a month I can do myself and we could maybe avoid the physical therapist.
Anyway, it's very different from a rotator cuff repair. I'll keep you posted on future developments.
