The shoulder is perhaps one of the most important joints in the body. It allows us to reach for things overhead, move our arms, write, keep our balance, and more.
When the shoulder joint becomes injured, it is a source of pain and discomfort that is not easy to cope with, precisely because the shoulder does so many things that we have come to take for granted.
Such was the case for me. Years ago, when I was young, I fell down from the top of a toboggan, and fissured my right collar bone.
Unbeknownst to me or to my parents, the collar bone crack was not the only injured I sustained back then.
The head of the humerus impacted against the socket (called the glenoid) and created a depression, called a Hill-Sachs injury, which is substantially a depression in the cartilage, and a Bankart lesion to the soft tissues, essentially a tear in the lip of the glenoid, causing instability in my shoulder joint. In addition, the crack in the collar bone created a bone spur that pressed against a muscle, causing it to degrade over time.
Such state of things went on untreated for several years, causing instability in the shoulder joint, inflammation, pain and range of motion limitations.
Whilst I was young, such things where no more than nuisances; as I aged, however, those nuisances became more persistent and more painful. It all came to a head when I decided to practise a fad called electro-assisted gymnastics. In this kind of training, you are equipped with a harness that has several little vibrating motors controlled by an apparatus that regulates their intensity. Such a kind of gymnastics exacerbated a weakened part of my body, namely, my injured shoulder, and aggravated my old lesion. As a result, the shoulder luxated and I experienced a seizure because of the intense pain. For awhile I was quite unable to use my shoulder fully.
Time passed, and as pain receded, I thought I was mended. That was a fool’s hope.
Pain came back, perhaps not as intensely as before, but more persistently. my shoulder started popping, and I would occasionally feel twinges of pain of varying intensity.
I was growing weary of this situation, so I went to consult a physiatrist. He prescribed a round of physical therapy, the third that I had underwent since noticing the pops and pains in my shoulder were beginning to be more frequent. The physical therapist, whilst manipulating my arm, noted a significant pop whenever he did a certain movement, and alerted me about it, recommending that I go see an orthopaedic doctor.
I did so, and he asked me to have an MRI scan done to my shoulder. The scan revealed not only that I was significantly injured but also that the injury was not recent. He was concerned enough about the nature of my injuries to recommend me to go to a surgeon, in order to ascertain whether a surgical procedure would be warranted in my case.
When I went to the surgeon, he asked me many questions about my condition. What was I feeling, how long had I been feeling it, how sharp was the pain, how long had it been going on, and whether I had done any physical therapy to ameliorate it, among others. Based on my responses, the surgeon initially recommended physical therapy; when I told him that I had already done 4 rounds of physical therapy with no appreciable results, he looked concerned, and told me that it was necessary to intervene in my shoulder.
The intervention was scheduled for may the 4th.
On that day, I was admitted, given a nerve blocker, put under general anaesthesia, and my shoulder was operated with an arthroscopic procedure, which for the most part repaired the ageing damage that I had sustained.
In all, I had 5 places where I was intervened on. The depression on the shoulder socket was replenished, torn tendons where stitched together, the glenoid lip tear was fixed, the bone spur in my collarbone shaven and everything put in its proper place.
This was three days ago. The first day was perhaps the worst. It was very painful. It was aggravating. And it was fraught with anxiety, on account of the nerve blocker having completely frozen in place and numbed my arm.
The second day was marginally better, I got to return home, even though I was in quite some pain, but at least the nerve blocker had faded, I was conscious and I was able to move my left arm freely.
Today, on May the 7th, things are marginally better again, pain has receded somewhat, Though I am still quite swollen from the procedure, I believe that I will come through.
It will be a difficult three – four months ahead, they will involve, among other things, physical therapy, pain management and some rehabilitation in order to preserve function and range of motion. Obviously, typing with my right hand is out of the question, so I will be relying on voice dictation, and, necessarily, I will not be able to be online in second life as much as I would like to. Once I regain better function of my right arm, I will start coming back for limited amounts of time. I hope that you all will not miss me too much, because I will still be a constant presence in your lives, whether through Speedlight or Discord, so that I do not lose contact with all of you.
This will be perhaps the most challenging time we have faced as an online family. We have to be together, pull together, and be there for each other, because that is what families do, when faced with a situation like the one we are facing today.
I love you all, I trust you all, I know you will all do your best and represent and serve me like you all know how to.
I love you all, I keep you in my thoughts, and I count to be back soon and better than ever.