50th

[cushman eagle]

I am scheduled for shoulder replacement surgery on January 29th
Has anyone had this,and how does it effect riding,and how long after surgery does it take?
Today Peg and I got to celebrate our 50th anniversary
We went to see Lion King then went to Longhorn

[misft]

Congratulations on your 50th anniversary! Quite a milestone. Good luck with your surgery.

[cushman eagle]

Congratulations on your 50th anniversary! Quite a milestone. Good luck with your surgery.

Thank you, misft

[Scott-(Altoona, PA)]

Congrats on hitting the golden anniversary! 50 is nothing to sneeze at, God Bless Peggy for entertaining you for as many years.
Just kidding, you two are a great couple and very kindhearted folks. The world would be so much better if there were more like you.
As for the surgery I have not but my doctor just told me on Dec 24th that I may end up getting hip replacement in the future. TBD at this point.

[cushman eagle]

Congrats on hitting the golden anniversary! 50 is nothing to sneeze at, God Bless Peggy for entertaining you for as many years.
Just kidding, you two are a great couple and very kindhearted folks. The world would be so much better if there were more like you.
As for the surgery I have not but my doctor just told me on Dec 24th that I may end up getting hip replacement in the future. TBD at this point.

Scott,thank you for the kind comments

[Lucasind]

Congrats on the 50th ! , .. sorry that you have to go through a major surgery like that......a lifetime of hard physical labor claims another victim
.....heal up best ya' can , and hope to hear that you are going to the June rally

[cushman eagle]

Congrats on the 50th ! , .. sorry that you have to go through a major surgery like that......a lifetime of hard physical labor claims another victim
.....heal up best ya' can , and hope to hear that you are going to the June rally

Thank you,Tony, I hope my recovery is complete enough to ride there!

[Scott-(Altoona, PA)]

Hey Loren, do you know what the butcher said after his arm got caught in the meat grinder?
He said, "It won't be long now!"
One week from now you will be all fixed up and starting the mending process! May the good lord guide the surgeons' hands and grant them the wisdom to successfully complete the task at hand! Or should I say shoulder!

[cushman eagle]

Hey Loren, do you know what the butcher said after his arm got caught in the meat grinder?
He said, "It won't be long now!"
One week from now you will be all fixed up and starting the mending process! May the good lord guide the surgeons' hands and grant them the wisdom to successfully complete the task at hand! Or should I say shoulder!

Thank you Scott
I will keep you posted on the process

[Nails]

Or the butcher who backed into his meat grinder -- got a little behind in his work.

(God, sometimes I'm so funny I can't stand it. )

[Scott-(Altoona, PA)]

Loren, sending prayers and wishing you luck tomorrow!
Listen to the doctors and do the therapy as they prescribe!

[Nails]

In your post-op visit with the surgeon, make sure to get a clear schedule for the physical therapists, with milestone dates and objectives/limits. Something like " Do nothing but sit in the sling for [however long], then limited passive range of motion only for the next [whatever] weeks, then over the next [whatever] weeks work up to full, pain-free, passive range of motion." Eventually, it'll be active ROM, and then with resistance.

(My surgeon totally forgot about handlebar therapy, which became necessary when I had to get to PT but my truck wouldn't start -- the one with the floor shifter -- 'cause my car wasn't running either.)

I took my wife to an early PT visit, which was a mistake. The PT asked me how much the surgeon told me to wear the sling. "All the time."

"How much?", as if she didn't hear me. "All the time." At this point my wife piled on, "How much?"

(But it didn't work -- I still often took it off when I was just sitting, which was a lot of the time. Oh well, I guess I'm why they're called "patience".)

[cushman eagle]

Thank you Scott,and Nails
I am to check in at the hospital at 6:30 tomorrow morning
I will keep you posted on the proceedings.

[GrandpaDenny]

Please do. 12 days till I have rotator cuff surgery, so I'm absolutely following your experience!

[Nails]

Talking of patience ... we're all waiting for an update!
A really sloppy one 'cause you're typing with one hand. (The Columbus Typing Method: discover it and land on it.)

[cushman eagle]

I had my surgery on, Wednesday,and was home by 4;30 Sleeping that night was not too good due to the pain,but has been pretty good I go back to the doctor Monday for surgery followup, then therapy and it's pain

[Nails]

Glad to hear that it went well.

Yeah, excessive pain will interfere with your recovery ... so take the dang pain meds when you need them. Don't get all Ohio-farmboy stoic about it! You might only need the narcs for a few days to get over the trauma of the surgery itself. Besides the incisions, your surgery involved pulling and stretching skin, muscles, and other soft stuff, as well as suturing into bones and other hard stuff. They literally hammer on your timbers (picture your limp body being jostled by the blows); and you probably have bruises from the torture devices they used to hold you steady.

For the lo-oong second stage of your recovery pain isn't a very good guide because some nerves have to regrow to properly protect you -- much less all the reattaching of severed bones, ligaments, and tendons. These tissues often don't have a rich blood supply to promote healing. I mean, you gotta be really careful not to wreck the surgery because you might not even feel it. (You won't want to sleep laying down, when you might roll over on it.) Remember that you're only held together by a thread.

I've been lecturing as the nurse that I was. Now I'm speaking as the patient that I was. Healing the recovered tissues to make your shoulder even move right will take months. For my surgery (which was less invasive than yours), I found that Ibu worked just fine for this part. I was able to taper down to over-the-counter doses in a couple weeks. You shouldn't expect really any pain from PT for these months of initial recovery. They might indulge their torture proclivities later, after the tissues are enervated and can properly feel it, but for months they won't want you to use your shoulder at all. They'll do all the moving; and you just have to relax -- else they'll smack you up 'side the head. PT knows how to simply get things moving again without stressing any of those sutures.

Only after these initial months can you even think about stretching, much less recovering your strength. It takes a while.

Good luck. And best wishes to Step-n-Fetch, your long-suffering wife.

[VoyKimmer]

I agree with Nails on everything . I had left hand surgery the end of November . Thumb joint replaced with artificial one. It’s called thumb CMC and they did the carpal tunnel at the same time. I was doing good with PT then last week I took a hard fall right on it. Now I have a fractured left wrist and damaged my hand again.
Now it’s starting all over recovery again plus more. Number one , don’t fall or damage it. Be careful and yes take the pain meds. I’m on them all over again.

[Nails]

I broke my left wrist a couple years ago, falling off a ladder that had been practicing Aikido. The cast eventually made my fingers go numb. I figured I was swelling in the cast, and so I cut it off about 2 weeks early. (So sue me.)

But it was really that a nerve from my neck to my arm was shrinking. The PTs rubbed near my clavicle, from my spine toward my shoulder, stretching that nerve a bit. It hurt like hell, even though they weren't pushing hard at all. (PTs are Woe Masters.) But I couldn't move my thumb much (that also hurt a lot) until after they did that stretch thing (on my chest); and then I immediately had a lot more mobility in my thumb. I thought that was pretty weird.

Maybe you already experienced that. Or maybe you will. I sincerely wish you good luck with your treatment and recovery.

Getting old sucks. I got a whole lot of use out of my body; but I'm getting tired of it falling apart now.