It feels surreal…like a lucid dream. There’s a part of my brain that refuses to accept that tomorrow, I will receive shoulder surgery that’s going to change my life. Although, that isn’t exactly surprising considering how long I’ve been waiting for it, and how many hoops I’ve been jumping through.
I feel as though chronic pain patients are surprised when someone offers them a new solution, or new information about their condition. For complicated or rare cases, the astonishment smarts when finally, AHA! That one specialty physician knows what the heck the actual problem is. I know I was certainly taken aback.
Nervous as I am, I feel lucky to have not needed major surgery until now. I can’t help ruminating on my surgeon’s delineation of what will take place during the surgery tomorrow. Admittedly, it’s a bit unnerving and nauseating to think about it happening to my own body.
This led me to search for other people on the internet who have already been where I am, who can reassure me that it’s totally going to be fine. However, as this condition is deemed rare, patient recovery stories regarding this condition are scarce. I found one person’s story from 11 years ago. Hers is the only story I found, despite my obsessive, fretful researching.
“In a world where you can choose to be anything, choose to be kind.”
She has been so helpful and kind in discussing this with me, reading about my fears, reassuring me, giving me the good, the bad, and the ugly. Words cannot express how grateful I am that she shared her story, and is willing to be my penpal, of sorts. It helps me feel less alone embarking on this endeavor. I often tell my children, “In a world where you can choose to be anything, choose to be kind. There is never enough good, kind people to go around.”
Speaking of good, kind people, I am glad to have found one in my doctor. This past Monday Dr. Grantham squeezed me in for a follow-up visit to discuss my concerns and questions about the surgery. I respect that he likes to answer such questions in person, and I am confident in his skills and knowledge. I feel incredibly blessed, knowing I am in the best, most capable hands I could be in for this condition and procedure.
Alas, I am also filled with joy and excitement that it’s finally my turn! It seems rather odd and a bit dark, that I feel joyous and excited about my shoulder getting flayed open, having holes drilled into my scapula, the muscles getting stitched back into the bone to “reattach them,” and getting sewn back up like a hole in a quilt.
Except the longer I suffer, the worse the pain and limitations become, and the more desperate I feel. The pain is unbearable, and began “setting off” my occipital neuralgia along with my migraines, within a few months of the acute injury in 2020.
If you’re not familiar with occipital neuralgia, it is intense nerve pain akin to receiving electric shocks to the back of your head that radiate in all directions. Dealing with all three different types of pain simultaneously over and over has truly been testing my mettle.
Throughout this journey, the more failed treatments I endured, the more doctors I saw that could not help me, the more frustrated I felt. I just kept thinking to myself, “There must be an answer. There must be someone who can help me. Something’s gotta give. Something has to change.”
As the days and months drug on with no solution in sight, I sorely missed working out, feeling strong and capable. I hungered for the freedom to crush whatever tasks I needed done without my husband’s help (mostly). I ached for my hobbies requiring the use of both arms such as archery and rifle shooting.
It feels as though the world was my oyster. This painful existence is a far cry from living. It feels like I have just been surviving, dragging myself through each day, relishing in each tiny bit of joy I could find, as it distracts me from the pain. I know that sounds melancholy, and probably melodramatic, but it is a relief to share my experience with raw honesty.
Nevertheless, I haven’t been able to exercise except for low impact cardio for three years. The days before I was in near-constant intense pain seem like a distant memory. The days when I felt free and able to accomplish just about anything when I set my mind to it.
“The body knows what the mind has yet to understand.”
Conversely, this is how I know I am more than ready to take this on tomorrow. I am so ready to move forward after feeling stuck for three years. I know this is the right thing to do for myself. My body has known for three years, maybe longer. Physical therapy failing to “magically fix” the problem confirmed that truth. Over the years, I have learned that the body knows what the mind has yet to understand.
I am as prepared as I feel I can be, thanks to my lovely Scottish penpal, the internet, and my own resourcefulness. I’ve got a mountain of pillows, all my post-op meds, plenty of comfy clothes, and more (metaphorical) balls than I ever knew I would need. Let’s do this.
Musecal Mind 