Unavoidable down time

I spent most of my youth playing baseball. There was baseball season, and then there was other stuff we did until it was baseball season again, like going to school. I played softball well into my forties.

Now that I’m about to turn 50, I am paying the price for that lifetime spent playing baseball. My right acromioclavicular joint (part of the shoulder structure) is filled with bone spurs and arthritis, and the bone spurs constantly irritate the surrounding tendons, which means that I have a perpetual case of very painful tendonitis that nothing helps. The only thing that will help is to remove the bone spurs that cause the irritation of the tendons. Considering that I’m right handed and was a pitcher for a part of my baseball career, this does not come as a huge surprise.

So, come Wednesday afternoon, I am having surgery to go in and clean all of that accumulated junk out of the joint. Assuming that there is no involvement of the rotator cuff–and the MRI does not show any–I should be out of the sling in about ten days and then onto about six weeks of rehab. My personal trainer has been working hard on strengthening my rotator cuff since this problem became acute in October, so hopefully, the physical therapy won’t be too bad as a result.

If the rotator cuff is involved–the orthopedist won’t know for sure until he gets in there on Wednesday–then it gets ugly. Really ugly. Then, I’m in a sling and sleeping in a recliner for six weeks with lots of thoroughly unpleasant physical therapy to survive.

So, my point is that having my right arm in a sling means that I won’t be around here much for the next two weeks for sure. Once I know how it went and am allowed to have some use of my right arm, I will update this. For now though, effective tomorrow afternoon, I fade to black for a little while. Wish me luck. In the meantime, I will miss my interactions here.

UPDATE: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7: I’m now five days post-surgical. The good news is that there was no tear in the rotator cuff, and the surgeon only had to clean out the bone spurs and arthritis. That’s very good news indeed. The bad news is that I’ve still got a pretty fair amount of pain, although I’ve managed to avoid taking any more percocet since bedtime on Saturday night (I really don’t like how they make me feel at all). I put in half a day at the office Friday and about 3/4 of a day at the office today.

I’ve now been out of the sling for about two hours tonight. It aches, but it’s tolerable. I hope to be able to put in a full day of work tomorrow, and I’m going to try to be out of the sling for much of the day while there.

Thanks to everyone for all of the good wishes and good thoughts stated here. You have no idea how much it means to me.