Embracing Chaos

A bit over a week ago I had surgery to keep my arm from falling off.  It’s happened at least a half dozen times in the last couple of years — while snowboarding, rock climbing or climbing Mt Rainier.  Then the attachment became really weak and it would come off for no good reason at all — just taking off a backpack or even reaching for a glass of water.  While I was wiping my ass was definitely the worst.  Thank god for awesome roommates.

Anyway, after a long process of finding a kick-ass orthopedic surgeon who specializes in shouders and figuring out how to get insurance to pay for it, I finally went under the knife to have the old bolts tightened.  10 days later and I can finally type again.  Technically it was a bankart repair which I’ll leave you to research if you care, but in my case involved drilling some tiny holes in my bones and tying some connective tissue back into place.  You might be able to follow along on this video he took while poking around arthroscopically before performing the actual repairs:

(my favorite part is when he pulls out the hedge trimmer attachment to get a clearer view.)

Anyway, now I’m left with a few nice clean cuts and one extremely weak arm.  Funny things I’ve noticed include that washing my hands is often quite painful.  I figured out this is because pushing your hands together requires using internal rotation, which uses the subscapularis muscle, that he had to cut through to get a clean shot at the problem.  Pushing light switches with the wounded wing has also nearly reduced me to tears.  But it’s getting better every day.  I think another month I’ll put my new cadillac sling on the shelf next to the others, and then a month after that I should be biking, and another month and I’ll be swimming.  And shortly thereafter, I’ll be biking through Vietnam.  w00t!