on being frozen. also steroids, surgeries, and skeletons. (and bras?)

People.  I’m telling you- things around here these days?  Cray.  I keep waiting for a lull in general ridiculousness, but it just ain’t coming.  So I keep holding on, white-knuckled, waiting to see what this wild ride of 2014 has left for us.

Yesterday found me at my surgeon’s office for my two month follow-up visit.  I had a pretty decent idea how things would go… which is precisely how they went.  No bueno.  I was clued into this when I heard the fellow flipping through my chart and mumbling as he walked in.  “Hmm.  Well.  Well, this is an anomaly.”  Awesome.  Basically, I have a pretty “impressive” frozen shoulder.  I throw that descriptor in there because (a) the doctor used it herself and (b) I take some sort of sick pleasure in being impressive in something these days.

My physical therapist told me that she never would have expected for me to develop frozen shoulder as a complication from my previous surgery.  It’s just “bad luck”, I’ve been told.  My body apparently scars like all get-out and all of that scar tissue has resulted in a stuck shoulder and, well, general misery.  (Be encouraged!)

My impressiveness earned me two steroid shots in my shoulder joint yesterday.  I think I need to pause here for a second.  To elaborate a teensy bit.  To have a moment of silence for all of you who have endured past steroid injections in your poor, already-wounded joints.  To offer up a warning for those of you who might have them in the future.  Because FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING GOOD AND HOLY, those junks HURT.  At one point during this whole ordeal, I knew something was terribly wrong.  Sure, there was a huge, large gauge needle wiggling around in my flesh, but it was more than that.  “What in the HECK am I feeling?” I not-so-calmly asked the PA.  “Oh, just a little pressure,” he responded.  Uh, no.  That’s like saying pushing out a baby is “just a little pressure”.  I informed him that I was fairly confident my shoulder was going to explode.  It didn’t.  But it hurt.

So, our fingers are crossed and prayers are being offered that those injections were worth it.  But the PA yesterday kindly warned me that “wow, there was a lot of scar tissue to push that needle through.  You don’t see that everyday.”  As if to say, “good luck, kid.”

Impressive, I tell ya.

Yes, we’re hoping for the best, but the ortho already proactively scheduled surgery numero DOS in case things don’t clear up.  For January 20th.  Which just so happens to be my birthday.  I can’t help but laugh at this point.  And sometimes cry.  I can’t make up my mind what in the heck to do!  Because we’re two months in and I’m STILL out of work for the indefinite future and I’m STILL functionally one-armed and, to top things off, surgery on my flippin’ BIRTHDAY?  There are 365 days in the year.  I can’t even.

I’m okay.  We’re okay.  We’re celebrating small victories.  And I’m already planning a massive throwdown the day I can reach behind my back to fasten my bra all. by. myself.  (Sorry, dad.  Your daughter has grown up.  She wears a bra.  That she can’t fasten herself.)

Plus, as this guy that hung in the corner of my exam room yesterday so kindly reminded me, “DUDE.  It could be a lot worse.”