Rotator Cuff Surgery Recovery: Weeks 11-12

This is the last post about the shoulder surgery.  Last week, Thursday, the doctor said I only had to wear my arm restraint for one more week, so, I haven't worn it since.  :)  Once freedom is so near, you just have to grab for it!  Friday, for the first time, the PT has me trying to lift my arm over my head, push my hand up a wall, and use a pulley system to stretch my shoulder myself.  All very weird feeling after 11 weeks of being told, "No, no, no."  Now all of a sudden it's, "Yes, yes, yes!"  It was a weird mental transfer for me.  But once I got it, it was all "go, go, go." 

Here is a negative of my shoulder I finally got.  It's not very clear, but you can see a few of the screws.  The screws were used to re-attach my tendons to the bones.  There wasn't much of the "labrum" left so he might have used a screw with a tie on the end to try to hold that together, too.  You can see the metal plate and the screws in my neck in this shot, too, a little.  Just call me "Frankenmissi.  :)

I have a picture of one of the MRIs too, from before the surgery, but I really can't tell a thing from it.  I guess that's why you have to be trained to read those things.  Well, here it is anyway.  It looks even more creepy than the one with the screws.

So my mental attitude is much improved with the doctor's release to start doing some more aggressive strength building and stretching...  They know that I shoot archery, so they are devising some fun exercises to get me back with my bow lickity-split.  I went to the gym both Saturday morning and today.  I'm going to have to work on getting there during the week, too, the days I don't have PT, until Christmas break. 

So, what has changed this past week?  I can touch my eyebrows now (still have to wash my hair with my left hand).  I put the hanger on the rack with my right hand this morning (woo-hoo).  Since I cast off the arm restraint, I can put both my arms in my jacket, thank goodness, now that it's down to 10 degrees Centigrade this weekend.  I'm eating about half the time with my right hand now.  Still can't really reach behind my back with the right arm yet.

The doctor said it might be six months to a year before my shoulder actually feels "normal" again.  That's okay, though.  Just being out of that arm thing is such a relief.

Well, I hope someone can benefit from these comments about shoulder surgery in the future.  I hear that a lot of people have to go back and have the other shoulder done.  I hope that is not the case with me.  I don't want to do this again.  It is just too weird!  That's about the best word to describe what it feels like now.  There is virtually no pain anymore, although sleeping is still an issue.  I did sleep in my own bed the past two nights.  Waking up and tossing and turning a lot.  Anyway, I think I'm done with the recliner.  I just don't want to go down to the den anymore.  Especially now that it's turned so cold.  I feel guilty heating the extra room at night.  :)

What I'm going to try to do is keep doing these exercises they have given me to strengthen both my shoulders, to ward off any other shoulder issues.  Archery, here we come.

Shoulder Surgery Recovery: Weeks 1 - 2

I heard yesterday about another teacher who had shoulder surgery.  The person telling me said, "She was surprised at how painful it is."  Well, for those of you anticipating shoulder surgery, you need to accept this fact.  The first two weeks are very painful!

It has been 10 weeks for me now, so I do not remember some things from those early weeks.  I should have been writing about it sooner, to be more accurate, but for a long time I didn't feel up to it.  Typing was actually quite hard at first.

My experience --

Week 1:  I got to the hospital at 6AM, and left at about 5PM.  I was the last one in the post-operative outpatient room.  I felt sick and dizzy when I tried to stand up or move.  That quick acting pain med they used in the recovery room was really nice!  Shot it right into the IV.  I'm allergic to morphine, so they couldn't give me that.  They had to shoot me up with some nausea medicine , too.    My poor husband!  He had gone to work expecting a phone call in a few hours to come get me.  He finally just came to the hospital around two, and ended up having to wait with me until I was able to get to the car and get home.  I think he went to the drugstore during that time to get the prescription pain meds.

They gave me hydrocodone.   I took that consistently for four days.  And I used ibuprofen in between after about three days.  After I got off the hydrocodone, mostly because it made me feel nauseous all the time, I remember I took some "night time" ibuprofen during the day once, just so I could try to sleep (that was my mom's suggestion, and it was a good one!).  And I took it at night, about every other night for the first week. 

There was this bulb attached to my sling that had a tube running up into the shoulder wound.  They told me before I left the hospital that it had pain medicine that would leach into the shoulder over the first two days to provide longer pain relief over the worst two days.  Also, I had a nerve block in my shoulder to numb that part of my arm for the first day or so after surgery.

I didn't even try to lay down in my bed for the first two weeks.  Learn to sleep in the recliner!

Learn to live with an ice pack.   Two ice packs, really.  One in the freezer while the other one is on your shoulder.  The ice really helps the pain.  Numbs it some, and keeps the swelling down a little.

I had surgery on Thursday.  My husband took off the bandages for the first time on Saturday night (according to the doctor's instructions), and took out the bulb pain reliever tube. 

I only threw up once, Friday morning.

I thought I would enjoy watching television or movies, or reading books this first week.  Didn't happen.  Just slept and took pain meds, went to the bathroom with assistance, and didn't eat much.  Holding anything in my right arm was impossible. 

The first session of physical therapy came just four days after the surgery, on Monday.  Getting dressed was a real challenge.  Up to that point, I had just been in a nightshirt.  Don was at work, so I had to dress by myself.  Must have taken a half an hour!   I was still in a daze.  They put me in the chair that moves your arm passively for about a half an hour, and then manipulated it by hand for a few minutes.  Then they stuck the electrode on me and iced and zapped the shoulder for 15 minutes. 

Learn to live with everything taking at least twice as long as it normally does.

I thought I would still be able to teach my online class, but typing was so painful, it was impossible.  I had to call for a "sub."  He took the class for me for about five days, and then I tried to get back online.  Even then, it was very difficult. 

I was going stir-crazy after about six days of being cooped up in the den, so I went for a walk, about a quarter mile to a friend's house.  Don came and got me to drive me home.  I think I was still really out of it.

Week 2:  I went back to work on my 11th day out of surgery.  That was OK.  I don't have a really physical job.  Any time I needed to write something on the blackboard, I just asked a student to do it.  I was still taking three ibuprofen every four hours.   I took that much for at least three weeks.

It was funny; I saw one of my students from last year, and he asked me about what happened.  And he suddenly said, "Oh yea, that time you couldn't lift your arm to write on the blackboard."  (I injured my shoulder back in May.)  It was cool that he remembered that. 

Stitches came out at the end of the second week.  They took a  post-surgery x-ray of my shoulder, and I found out for the first time that I had six 5/8-inch titanium screws added to my physique.  Light bulb goes on - no wonder it hurts so much. 

Physical therapy for the next four weeks, three times a week, in the chair for an hour, manual manipulation by the PT for a few minutes, then the electrode zapping with ice for 15 minutes.  That was it.  All passive motion.

I have to stop now.  It's Thanksgiving Day, and I have to start cooking.  I found out at 6:30AM that I can't make bread very well with my left hand; can't kneed the dough with my right hand yet.  I did try a little...

Week 6 - 7: Rotator Cuff Surgery Recovery

Week 6 - No pain meds in Week 6, so more discomfort, but tolerable.  Blew my nose with both hands, but it was awkward, so I went back to the one-handed technique. I did actually begin to use my biceps in physical therapy.  They gave me one of those long stretchy rubber strips (the yellow one - the least resistance) and said I should do biceps curls by standing on one end of the strip, and then triceps exercises, hooking the strip over a door frame.  I am supposed to do this every other day.  My arm aches quite a bit the next day.

I was trying to think what differences there were this week, and I couldn't come up with much. 

Week 7 - I've actually taken Tylenol and Ibuprofen this week.  One day at school I lost my resolve and took some Tylenol.  Then on Friday, I was bending over to put food in the dog bowl, and I must of twisted wrong, because I pulled a muscle in my lower back...  It was really a relief to be able to take Ibuprofen again.  I'm really just a big baby when it comes to dealing with pain (actually, I'm a big baby in a lot of ways, says my husband!).  :)  Here's the dogs we feed every day.

Got another lecture from the Physical Therapy people.  Their message, "No, no, no!"  No, I can't try to shift my car with my right arm.  No, I can't try to put on my seat belt.  No, I can't do any exercises requiring me to lift my arm.  No, I should not be stretching on my own.  No opening doors, no carrying groceries, no milk gallons, no stacks of books...  Anything that requires me to bare weight with that arm is still out.  I did try brushing my teeth again with my right arm, but it didn't work very well.

Along with losing my strength in that arm, I have also lost my coordination.  Also, there is still little to no rotation in my shoulder, so my arm just doesn't work right.  You'd be surprised how many motions require some sort of rotation at the shoulder.

They said that shoulder surgery is one of they types of recoveries that you should not try to use the joint ahead of schedule.  My tendons are apparently building new sources of blood supply, and will be at the weakest at 12 weeks out of surgery.  So trying to "push through the pain" to use the arm at this point will only lengthen my recovery time, and possibly damage the corrections the surgery put in place, according to the PT people.  They said that time would come for me, just not yet.  Five more weeks for me.  Maybe by Christmas I'll be using my arm "normally" again.

I'm hoping to be able to pick up my bow again in January.  We start indoor leagues then.  I really don't know if I'll be able to draw my bow.  If not, I'll borrow a baby bow just to get the muscles moving in the right direction again.

Have to include a picture, so here's one of Don at our "Broadhead Shoot" in August.

So I adopted a new "no use" policy Friday night when I got home from physical therapy.  Then Saturday I went shopping.  :)  It was tough holding all those hangers of clothes and looking through racks with only one arm (I was not totally successful in not using the arm).  And trying the clothes on was awkward (as usual!).  But I came away with three skirts - black, dark brown, and a striped blue/tan (everything was more than 50% off, Veteran's Day sales), one jacket, one vest and one tank top.  I felt successful, and did not spend that much.

Then we stopped by Cabelas, and we bought a pair of binoculars.  All the top girls at the Traditional World Championships used binoculars.  I figured I needed to have a pair, too.  Maybe that would help be break into the top three next year.  :)  I don't know if I've written about the championships.  I earned fourth place.  Those women were sooooooo good!

Sleep has not been good this week for some reason.  The amount of time I have slept in my own bed has cut back to two hours a night (it was 4 hours before).  Then I am waking up more often at night, too.  The PT people said there would be plateaus.  Guess I hit one this week.  Don gives me backrubs most nights before I go to sleep.  Those feel really good.  I told him it was an important part of my physical therapy.  :)  I don't think he believes me. 

When I put in the picture, my paragraphs all got mixed up.  Hmmm... oh well.  Have to get into my online class now and do some grading!

Week 5 - Rotator Cuff Surgery Recovery

This is a chronicle of my recovery, because no one told me what it would really be like trying to recover from intensive rotator cuff surgery.  Or maybe, I just wanted to be ignorant.  I heard several times that it was a "long recovery," but did I know I wouldn't be able to use my arm for three months?  Yes, I guess I did know that, but what I didn't know is what that meant.

I didn't know I wouldn't be able to pull up my own pants the first week, or tie my own shoes for two weeks, or put on a bra.  I just didn't think about the daily details that would be so different.  So I thought, maybe someone else will want to know, and it won't be so difficult coping for them.  I'll have to work backwards, because today is the first day I've had the strength/endurance in my arm and the motivation to type this much.

Week 5 has had some ups and some downs.  I am getting totally off the pain killers (including Ibuprofen and Tylenol), but because of that, I'm experiencing more pain.  Typing is still tiring and somewhat painful.  I've extended the hours I can sleep in my bed (with a wedge to prop me up 7 inches) to five hours, then I move down to the den and the recliner for the rest of the night.

Mind you, I've only had two 5-hour nights in bed this week; the others were two, three, and four hours at a time.  Part of me just wants to give up trying to sleep in my own bed, but Don likes to have me there, at least at the beginning of the night.  (He doesn't wake up when I move to the den.)  The other thing that keeps me trying is that I remember how much I was loathing sleeping by myself in the den after three weeks.  (Part of that is because I'm afraid of the wind, and there's a huge willow tree right outside the den... I kept envisioning it breaking through the roof of the den.) 

New Week 5 accomplishments: 30 minutes of aerobics (bike and treadmill) at the gym (twice this week), down to two times a week for physical therapy, can almost wipe with my right hand, able to update my blog :) ,  able to put on almost any kind of shirt (taking them off is more difficult), could put on tights without too much pain, have gotten 8 hours of sleep twice this week (with short wakeful times to change sleep locations), handwriting is almost normal if the writing surface is low,  thinking and emotions more stable with the decrease in pain meds.  I think that's about it.

Things I still can't do with my right arm/hand: lift it (PT people said "no, no"), brush my teeth or hair, put cream on my face, blow my nose (have to do that one-handed), wash my hair, dry off, wipe (just try wiping with your other hand! TMI), nothing behind my back, can't carry anything heavier than a cup of coffee (that hasn't changed), chores (yipee!) (actually, I did vacuum with my left hand yesterday, and I take out the trash, do my own laundry, dishes, cook and pick up dog poo, but all with one arm, so it takes about twice as long).  Can't open doors, or put on my own seatbelt when I'm in the driver's seat, grading student papers is hard, ... blah, blah, blah... and of course I can't draw my bow.

I haven't tried to draw my bow, of course, big no, no.  But my husband put it together yesterday and hung it back up on the wall (it is a take-down, 3-piece DAS recurve).  I almost cried.  I haven't seen it since we went to the 2009 Traditional Championships in Erie, PA (I earned fourth place).  Two days after we got back, I was in surgery.

So, do you suppose he put it back up for some psychological motivation to heal faster?!?  I won't be able to even try to pull it until January.  Maybe it will keep me looking forward towards the goal of being able to shoot again.

This surgery recovery is more difficult than when I had disk-replacement surgery 13 years ago.  After that surgery, I felt immediately better (no more pinched nerves).  This time, after 5 weeks, my arm/shoulder still hurts more than before the surgery.  Mentally, it is hard for me to grasp.  I just don't understand. I should have "bounced back" by now.  But I have to hang on to the belief that it will be better some day.  Weird.   When I saw the x-ray, it looked like Frankenstein.  There are six-3/5ths inch screws in my shoulder, all womp-a-jog.  And you could see the metal plate in my neck and the four screws there in the picture, too.  Really Frankenstein!