My first car was a turquoise 1958 Chevy Apache half-ton pickup truck that I bought for $350 and I still miss it. I sold it to some guys for a little less than that when it became clear that it was nickle-and-diming me to death. As soon as I fixed one thing – bad breaks or leaky head gasket – another thing would go out – muffler, headlights, etc.
I thought about the truck last night at the bone doctor, as I showed him the results of my MRI scan and threw in some X-rays of an old wrist injury for the fun of it. The wrist isn’t worth messing with, he said, since it’s not really in pain, but he had a little fun with the shoulder.
Look, I’m not old, so I won’t go on about my aches and pains, and I won’t go into the details of the diagnosis. I’m not afraid of getting shots, but when I saw the size of the syringe, and needle, I had to sit down. I got a shot of painkiller and cortisone, which was okay except it freaked me out a little how he moved the needle around in the shoulder joint, injecting here and there. I’ve never perceived my skeleton like that before, really, had it brought to my attention that way, by a needle moving around between the ball and socket joint.
But 5 minutes later most of the pain was gone, and I could put a T-shirt on without pain for the first time in years.
Also, when I mentioned how now I would be able to play the cello without excruciating pain in my shoulder, he told me about a Danish discus thrower he had treated once – “this tall” he gestured (about 6’10”) and “this wide” (about 4′ broad at the shoulders). The man was a huge athlete, but had acquired a shoulder problem from playing the trombone.
Musicians live dangerously.
Also, the doctor told me that if this shot and physical therapy don’t help, the only alternative would be an operation.
Me: “What sort of operation?”
Doctor: “Well, one of those minimal things, we just make a couple incisions…”
Me: “How many exactly?”
Doctor: “Two or three. One here to look in, one or two here to work.”
Me: “Doesn’t sound so…”
Doctor: “And then we take this grinder…”
Me: “Uh…”
Doctor: “You know, like a router or something?”
Me: “Eh…”
Doctor: “Only for medical purposes, of course. It fits right over the end of the joint and we grind off 5mm to make room in there.”
Me: “And the telephone number of the physical therapist was what again?”
[Gotta go, colleague is trying to fix my hard drive...]
you did better than me… I would’ve ran out at the sight of the needle.
I’ve had cortisone injections before in my wrist and my shoulder – they work wonders. After the local wears off the injection site will be a little sore but should feel ok again by tomorrow :)
Nothing creepier than hyperawareness of one’s anatomy. Many regions thereof, anyway. Congrats on the newfound flexibility. I hope the physical therapy works for you; everyone I know who’s had shoulder surgery (and why, pray tell, do I know so many folks who fit that description? oh, punk rock, right.) ends up having the same procedure year after year. Shudder.
Think of the pitchers and quarterbacks who have that sort of surgery done seemingly every two years or so (well, think of the $5-10M per year they make, too).
Rusty The Showtruck is looking for a good home if you’re feeling sentimental… a ’66 Aerotruck in original condition. With your newfound flexibility, you’ll be column-shifting and double-clutching your way down memory lane in no time :)
three on the tree, only way to be.