Shoulder Surgery 24 (Redux)

The surgery pain in my shoulder still won't go away, and I made yet another appointment with the new doctor to talk about it. We came away with this:

1. Apparently, 85% of patients report satisfaction with shoulder surgery. That means 15% have continual problems. I seem to be one of them.

2. Based on my most recent MRI, the doctor still doesn't think that exploratory surgery is necessary (good), and a second shoulder operation (which never goes as well anyway) would be a bad idea.

3. The doctor suspects the main tendon is still inflamed, which is causing the problems, but he isn't sure. He advised taking more anti-inflammatories. If it is indeed inflammation, a third cortisone shot might help, or even solve, the problem, but he didn't want to give me one unless he was sure the tendon was inflamed.

4. He wouldn't prescribe more painkillers. "As surgeons, we only prescribe meds post-surgery, and you're past that phase. You'll need to talk to your GP." (I later did, and he prescribed more Meloxicam, but nothing more powerful.)

5. Because the pain isn't going away, I need to "put a pause" on the physical therapy.

So what do we do?

In the end, I paused the PT and was scheduled for another MRI. I got an appointment only a day later and went in for it, but the first available appointment for follow-up wasn't until the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. 

In the meantime, however, the MRI results showed up in my patient portal. I untangled the medical jargon--here's where it's an advantage growing up in a medical family--and saw that, yep, the tendon is inflamed. 

Next week I see the doctor, then, and he'll probably give me the cortisone shot. I hope that ends it!

 

Shoulder Surgery 25 (Pause to PT)

So now I don't do physical therapy. For the moment.

This is a good thing. I don't have to drive to Ann Arbor twice a week and go through an hour of lifts and stretches. I don't have to add half an hour of exercises to my daily run. I get home from work, I do a run, and I'm done for the day, and it's not even 4:30.

I should be happy about this, but really, my feelings are mixed. I know my shoulder and arm aren't up to full strength, and I worry that pausing or stopping PT will mean I won't get that strength back. I definitely feel the strain--and pain--when I lift anything more than three or four pounds the wrong way. (When I mentioned this to the doctor, he said, "Then don't lift that way," which is decent medical advice, but thing is, I would like full strength back, thanks. I shouldn't have to spend the rest of my life with a weak right arm.)

On the other hand, a major burden has lifted. I'm no longer spending five and six hours a week, plus travel time, in physical therapy I hated.

Why is it not completely a thrill? I've been doing this for sixteen months. For a year and a half, my life has been bolt out of work and run to PT, then arrive home, tired and sweating and in pain, and by the time I showered and dressed, it was after 5:00--time to make supper. So my days started at 6:00 AM and I ran non-stop until 6:00 PM. For sixteen months. This made me feel ... helpless. Like I had no control over my schedule or my life. Wrenched daily from one even to the next, doing shit that felt scary or even degrading. ("Here, lift this one-pound weight. That's all someone in your shape can handle. Then I'm going to hurt you a bunch, but that part of the recovery process, so put up with it, you weak little shit.") 

After a while, it becomes your life. When it's lifted, you don't know how to let go. I get mad when I think about all the hours I put in (six hours a week times 78 weeks = 468 hours, which is more than ten 40-hour work weeks, or 20 days of 24 hours). How much could I have written in that time? How much could have I read? How much harp could I have played? How much could I have just rested when I needed to? Because the pain is still there, it feels like I completed 468 hours of PT for nothing. Wasted time. Lost time. And I still do an hour a week of talk therapy. Been doing that for a year, so add another 50 hours or so. And the amount of time I've spent on the phone and the amount of time I've spent at the doctor's office and it all adds up to so much time taken away from me.

It's hard to let go anger and frustration you've gotten on a daily basis for sixteen months, even when a chunk of the anger/frustration's source is over. Or at least, on hiatus.

I'm working on that. Being upset doesn't make life better for me. The only thing it does is ensure that I don't give up and I don't let the medical people give up. But it's not something that happens overnight.

Harris

I've avoided writing about this, but I need to.

My friend Harris died last week. 

I'm still in shock. Her husband must be in grief beyond grief. Harris had undergone a number of medical procedures in the last several years, and their health was dicey. Last week, they had a massive stroke.  

I first knew Harris as Anne Harris. A few years ago, they announced their non-gendered status and have been Harris since then. Harris joined the Untitled Writers Group some twenty years ago, when we were in our thirties, and we became friends. Harris had a sharp wit and earthy manner. If they liked something you wrote, you knew it, and if they thought you'd done something wrong, you knew that, too. One of their more memorable lines about a character of mine was, "My god--a woman with an actual clit!" Harris was the most likely person in the group to understand what I was trying to do with a given piece, and their advice was always valuable to me. As Jessica Freely, they wrote the ground-breaking novel All the Colors of Love. The book made me both laugh and cry in equal doses. They were--and remain--the only non-male author I've ever read who wrote realistic gay male characters. 

And then they wrote the short story "Still Life, With Boobs." Go read it. We'll wait!

Harris said that they were inspired to write the story when a friend mentioned that she didn't like wearing a low-cut blouse in public because when she did, it felt like her boobs were having conversations without her. Harris sent various drafts of the story through the group, and we always clamored to read it. I gave them one comment about a plot twist, and you can see it in the final version of story. (SPOILERS FOLLOW.) In Harris's original conception, Gwen's disapproving mother finds Gwen's runaway boobs in an ice cream carton and flips out. I told them, "You should change this. When Mom opens the carton, instead of freaking, she says tiredly, 'Oh. You, too.' " Harris pounced on this idea and gleefully worked it into the story. (END SPOILERS) Harris sent it to F&SF, and Gordon Van Gelder rejected it, but mentioned "the audacity of this story" as a treat. Harris eventually sold "Boobs" to Talebones. The story got a lot of deserved attention, and it became a finalist for the Nebula Award.

We were both Pagan, and we did some ritual work together. At Lammas one year, Harris told a dirty joke about the Goddess that explained how laughter entered the world. Harris and their husband Steve threw world-class holiday parties, too.

In the early 00s, I started teaching graduate school at Seton Hill University in their Writing Popular Fiction program. A few years later, however, my life just got too busy and I told the University I had to stop. The program director was worried--I was the only faculty member who handled fantasy and science fiction, and the student demand in those genres was climbing. Coincidentally, I had recently learned that Harris was looking for some supplemental income, so I put Harris and the University in contact with each other. Harris joined the faculty at Seton Hill and became a major hit. Students begged to be Harris's mentees, and they boosted the careers of many SHU students. 

Harris eventually left the Untitled Writers Group, and, since we lived relatively far apart, we drifted. I only saw them at major events and holidays, and then only online. I saw that Harris had gotten into improv theater, and I thought of how in-character that was (so to speak). Harris was always willing to try something new and different.

I feel the loss deeply. It's still hard to understand that they're gone. The space Harris occupied is empty now. They've moved on. 

A Different Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, my brother Paul really wanted to have the feast at a restaurant, specifically Zehnder's in Frankenmuth, and include the family of his lady friend Becky. The rest of us were amenable, so Paul made the reservation. You would think I'd be saying, "Hey! A no-muss, no-fuss Thanksgiving!" 

Not quite.

First of all, The Boys wouldn't be able to go. Max and Aran have to work, could make it to Frankenmuth and back in time. Aran is usually Sasha's transportation. And Darwin's son Shane wouldn't know much of anyone well. Ditto for our grandson Noah and his mother Mary.

So we're having a second Thanksgiving at our place on Friday.

I started prep when I got home from work today. (See the previous entry.) My energy level was low, and it took some time to get myself moving, but I did.

First up was prepping home-made macaroni and cheese. I got part-way into it and discovered I didn't have evaporated milk. I asked Darwin, who was curled up with his iPad, if he would run out and get some. He was reluctant ("I'm all comfortable") until I pointed out that I was cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner by myself, and if he wanted to eat any of it, he needed to get his butt moving! So he did.

While he was gone, I got the stuffing ready. (No a brand name, thanks--I rough-cut stale bread, drench it in butter, broth, sauteed onions, and herbs and mix it all together with my hands.) Then I peeled a huge pile of white and sweet potatoes and put them in cold water. When Darwin got back, I finished the mac and cheese. As I completed each item, it went into the garage to stay chilly until Friday.

After we get back from Frankenmuth on Thursday, I'll brine the turkey. I'm experimenting with a dry brine this year to see how it comes out. Basically, you coat the turkey in kosher salt and let it sit overnight, then roast as normal.

Then it was major clean-up time.

So a lot of the heavy lifting for Friday is done!

Long Wednesday

The day before a long weekend, a lot of teachers go for a more low-key day, partly because we're as tired as the students, and partly because absence rates are really high and you don't want to teach something new, only to have to re-teach it for all the students who missed it.

So I ran a low-key day. My seniors were great. We did some reviewing of previous material with online games, listened to a radio version of the book we're reading, and did some drawing of literary scenes. It was very relaxed and fun. Then my ninth graders showed up. They were monsters all class, some of the worst behavior I've seen all year. Immature and bad decisions that bordered on malicious. I was really upset with them, and it was a sucky way to end what had, until then, been a really nice day. I was glad to see the class end.

I have sixth hour prep, and normally I would have ducked out early, but we had a Gay/Straight Alliance meeting after school (we meet every other Wednesday, and this was an "other" Wednesday), so I had not only to stay, but stay late. I thought the meeting would be dead, with maybe three or four students, but we had a full house. All the active members came! I was a little mystified at this--didn't everyone want to get out for the long weekend?--but then I remembered how high schoolers see it.

To a teacher, an after-school meeting is work, and it's much the same as running a class (though the students are better-behaved). More work is the last thing you want on a Friday or the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. But the students see a group meeting as fun time. It's social time and time to unwind with friends. It's the kind of thinking that eventually leads to Happy Hour when they're adults. 

The meeting went very nicely, and it was good to get the taste of my freshmen's bad behavior out of my mouth, but as the time for the meeting to end drew near, a lot of them were lingering. Under normal circumstances, I'd've let them, but today I wanted to go home, so I gently shooed them out the door.

By the time I got to the parking lot, it was nearly 3:30, and on the way home, I got caught in the "I'm sneaking out early today" traffic, so it took a LONG time to get home. I was late, in fact, for my online counseling session, but was able to hook up with the therapist anyway.

In the end, it was after 6:00 before I got any downtime. I should have gone for a run, but I said screw it and slacked off.

But the day wasn't done yet. Thanksgiving prep had to begin...