The Long Wait

After returning from Florida a week after dislocating my left shoulder, I decided to hold off going to the orthopedist to see if it would heal on its own. Injuring my shoulder in January was both a blessing and a curse. As a professional photographer, winter is my slower time of year so I had the luxury of healing without jeopardizing any big jobs. The down side was that my shoulder was extremely unstable so shivering in the cold was downright dangerous. When I would start to shiver the top of my humorous would shake in the shoulder socket. With each shake it would pick up speed like an out of control snow ball barreling down a hill. Within seconds the tremor was so violent that the shoulder was shaking out of the joint. It was quite painful to say the least.

Several months passed and it was evident that the injury was not healing as nicely as I would have liked. Some stability was returning and the pain was decreasing, however there were a few positions that would catch something causing me to shriek like a little girl. It was time for an MRI. I would not normally consider myself claustrophobic, but I had an MRI a year earlier for headaches that suddenly appeared and it was a horrific experience. It wasn't the tube that freaked me out, but the cage they screwed over my face, locking me in the capsule of death. After a brief spike in heart rate and hyperventilating, I was able to calm myself down. Would my shoulder MRI be the same? I got myself pretty worked up ahead of time, nevertheless the process went off without a hitch. In fact, I even enjoyed an afternoon siesta while in the tube. I shouldn't say it went perfectly though. They had to redo one of the scans because the slightest movement, including my breathing, blurred one of the images.

My left shoulder is the subject of this blog, however it's my right shoulder that's the bad one. I've been dislocating my right shoulder ever since I threw a dodge ball in gym class in tenth grade and my shoulder made it to the opposing team before the ball. The big dislocation came during tryouts for the hockey team at SUNY Brockport my Freshman year. I went to college for meteorology and hockey and didn't end up doing either.

I figured as long as I was doing the MRI on my left shoulder, I should just have them do both. A few weeks later I went back to the ortho for the results and wouldn't you know it, both shoulders had extensive tears.

By this time wedding season was just getting under way, so it just wasn't financially feasible to have surgery until December. The waiting game began. All I had to do was avoid having drunk wedding guests bash in to me on the dance floor like it was a mosh pit. Easier said than done.