All the king's horses

Last Friday, I went back to see the ortho since my progress in PT had pretty much stopped. I opted for surgery and signed release forms to both rip it free under anesthesia and to arthroscopically excavate the scar tissue. The expectation was that the shoulder wouldn't give under anesthesia enough to make a difference and the surgery was pretty likely. This was kind of rushed given the holidays coming up. If I waited until after the holidays, it would continue to hurt and freeze more. If I did it right before the holidays missing a bunch of PT, it would re-freeze and I would enjoy a third visit to the hospital. I was scheduled for surgery 3 days later and tacked on to the list of patients for that day.



Tuesday, I went in to the hospital.

New Boy took me, maybe to make up for the last time. It was a point of honor. He was very sweet the whole time.

Last time I was at the surgery center, this time I was at the hospital. Given the choice, I would go to the surgery center instead of the hospital. Overall, the surgery center just seemed cleaner and the staff of a higher calibre. Although the hospital didn't make me pay in advance so there's something to be said for that, but they made me take a pregnancy test (???!) so whatever.

After contending with a nurse(?) of dubious competence (she dropped needles on the floor and didn't wash her hands), meeting with the most fabulous anesthesiologist ever, and fending off the deadly antibiotic, I went under expecting to wake up with a new set of scars.

Turns out they were able to wrench it free so no new scars. I was in the OR for a total of like 20 minutes. The ortho came out and gave the news to New Boy and said he'd be able to see me soon. Well apparently I was a little cranky about not eating breakfast and as I'm wont to do when anesthesia isn't involved, once I've skipped a meal I will continue to sleep until someone wakes me up and forces me to eat. So I didn't come out for close to 2 hours. This made New Boy a little nervous.

I was concerned because at first my shoulder was worse. It was tight, inflamed, and cranky. Couple that with us getting snow right after the procedure and I had lost all faith. My PT, the Dr, and Jopoppa all told me to quit whining and ride it out. It's been a couple weeks and it seems better now. I can even wash my hair and put it in a ponytail.