Three Weeks of Updates (Left Shoulder Surgery Recovery)

Hi blog,

Finally time for the update! Since I'm still having a bit of a hard time typing, I'm going to give you updates as I've been giving them to friends of mine since the surgery.

10/28
The surgery went really well. It took half as long as the right shoulder did last time. I had a nerve block so I'm not in any pain and hopefully I'll be able to go home in the morning! Typing is a bit of an annoyance cause I've only got one arm, the left arm is immobilized by my uber sling and I can't really feel anything in that arm anyways. I don't need painkillers that much because the nerve block means I don't feel anything. All in all, things are looking great and I'm guessing recovery is going to come along nicely!

11/1
I got home yesterday, I had to stay in the hospital a couple extra days because the pain got really bad and I couldn't leave until it was better controlled. The nurses and doctors didn't really help much with the pain because they didn't listen when I told them I have a very high tolerance for pain medication, so I kept getting doses for normal people, which did very little to actually control my pain. I got through it though and got out of the hospital. It's manageable now so I'm resting at home and able to do a little bit already. The doctor says everything looks really promising so far. It might even heal better and faster than the right shoulder, so it's all going well so far. 

11/4
I've started doing at home PT which is going well. The range of motion is decent and it actually doesn't hurt too much to do the exercises as long as I keep it calmish. The therapist I'm seeing says that it's definitely better than the right one was at this stage and was impressed at how much better it was. I'm seeing the therapist again tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. Other than that I've just been taking it easy to ensure I don't push myself too much and worsen my recovery. I'm trying not to let the boredom of being safe with my health annoy me too much. I'd been having some fevers and shaking on and off at night, but it's gone down and hasn't happened in a couple days.

11/5

I saw the doctor for my one week post-op appointment and they took the bandage off my surgery site before I saw him. It's looking very clean and hardly at all swollen. There's a thin scar but it doesn't look red or angry, which was a nice surprise. The bandage was left off so now it's completely uncovered, which burns a little to the touch but is otherwise fine. I had some x-rays done and the doctor says it's looking good so far. He also checked my range of motion and was pleased, even said that he fully expects the left one to heal up faster and better than the right one. All in all, the doctor thinks everything is coming along nicely and I'll be seeing him again in six weeks.

11/13
The nurse who comes to the house says the scar is looking really good, no infection or anything. PT is still going well, I started doing shoulder shrugs and my arm is getting better range of motion, although it's definitely painful. Part of that pain is coming from the lack of painkillers, the person who wrote the original prescription did it differently than I'd been taking it so I've been forced to ration my painkillers in order to have any at all, waiting to get more all week but tomorrow I'll get new ones. It's been difficult and has caused more pain, but I didn't really have an option. I tried calling the woman who prescribed them but she never called me back so I just rationed them and dealt with the extra pain. This sort of thing isn't too uncommon, problems with medication or hospitals or health stuff in general always seem to follow me around, you just deal with it best you can. An increase in my pain for a week I can deal with, I've held out this long, I can wait another day. Still, would have been nice if this hadn't happened at all. 

11/16
Got my painkillers so everything is good now. PT still going well, added in a couple more exercises. The pain has increased a little bit and I'm not sure why. I've had a couple nights in a row where I've woken up repeatedly with sharp pain assaulting my shoulder, I think it might be the way my arm is positioned so I'm going to try to change it a little and see if that helps (note: it did, although I only slept 3 hours last night I didn't wake up due to pain). I'm starting to get back into school and normal stuff instead of just sitting around and relaxing and making sure I don't overdo things. I'm still not back to my normal routine, that will take a while since I'm supposed to wear the sling for another three weeks at least, but I can at least start to catch up on stuff that I missed and work on keeping my grades intact as best I can. 

And that sums up the last three weeks of my recovery. I will do my best to keep regular updates from here on out, although I will be very busy with school because I have two classes to catch up on. I will do my upmost to keep you and all the readers apprised of my health and any updates as they come up. 

On the (New) Horizon(s)

Hi blog,

I don't have a ton to add, but I'll see what I can do so this post isn't just two sentences.

School started up last week, much to my surprise. I thought it was starting this week but apparently I have no idea what's going on with that so...school. I was taking three classes: critical thinking, history, and biology. I'm very excited about the first two, they both seems like interesting classes taught by interesting people (I researched the teachers first to make sure I got ones that wouldn't kill me with boredom). All three were at least partially online and the biology course had an on-campus lab that lasted three hours. Now, for those not in the know, I'd attempted to take an on-campus class complete with lab for the spring semester of this year and it went catastrophically. I was away from home for seven hours with only one break to rest and the toll it took on my body put me in so much pain I was forced to drop the class or see my health severely impacted. That was my big concern with taking a lab (when I went on Friday it was about studying snails. This is actually interesting, I swear) this semester, but since it was only three hours, I wasn't as negatively affected. It still hurt, my arm is still tender from the lab three days ago, but it wasn't debilitating. Maybe it would get worse as the labs got more complex and maybe it wouldn't have, but it's a moot point. At the moment it seems like I'll be dropping the class regardless of what it does to my right arm. Why? Because of my left arm, which I shall now explain. 

October 28th, 2014. That's my explanation. Not ten minutes after I left the biology lab I got a call from my doctor's office from his surgery scheduler. Yes, that's when I'm having my left shoulder replaced, in just over two months. If I stayed in the lab I'd be missing out on the last few weeks of class, and after talking to the person teaching him, he said it would be extremely difficult to pass the class if I stopped showing up. Plus I'm going to be wonked out of my mind on drugs, and two classes will be hard enough. Every sensible fiber points to dropping the class, and my disabled student service counselor agrees. The more important focus here is in the surgery and getting better, both so I can move forward in school and in life with as few problems as possible.

Polar bear cubs are the personification of warm fuzzy feelings

Why is that? Because, and I dread saying this because it got me in trouble last time (I said that after the knees and then the shoulders got bad), this will probably be my last surgery for a while. I'm out of joints, this is #8/9 (because the left hip was done twice the numbers are a bit finicky), the only things left after this are redos when the artificial/allograft joints wear out and need to be replaced. I'm actually excited. I don't know many people who are excited to have someone cut them open and tear this joint out only to replace it with something else, but I am one of them. I'm more comfortable with surgeries than I am with most things in my life, I guess that says something. It's their familiarity that really comforts me. The monotony of surgery is part of the appeal. The surgeries may be different on the surface but underneath they're essentially the same. The only uncertainty is with the surgery itself. But once you go under and come back up it's all about the same. The pain is in different places but it's still there. The methods of recovery are a little different but you still go through it. It's one of the few constants I can count on to understand in a maelstrom of uncertainty I'm currently facing. So I cling to it with joyful relief and get spared the looming specter of a cloudy future for a few more months. It's a smidge macabre, but you find the warm fuzzy feeling of familiarity wherever you can (especially in polar bear cubs; see above).

And now for a new segment that is really only taking place today because a bunch of stuff happened...

Today in space:

Yes, Neptune is STILL in space

• Two years ago we lost the great Neil Armstrong. There's a man who has left a mark (literally) on history that very few people will ever replicate. 
• Also today two years ago (although the date is a little more approximation than hard truth, but it's pretty close), the Voyager 1 spacecraft left our solar system, making it the first man-made object to leave our little neck of the galaxy. 
• Voyager 2 performed its flyby of Neptune in 1989 on this day as well, getting a good view of our (now) farthest planet and one of its strange moons, Triton. 
• Finally, the spacecraft New Horizons crossed Neptune's orbit (25 years to the day that Voyager 2 did) on its way to rendezvous with Pluto and then a couple objects in the region nearby. New Horizons should be reaching Pluto in a little under a year.

And just to round things off: I finished up a short story. It's actually a remake of a story I did a few years ago. I'm going to find a place to put it and then link it to this blog sometime in the future probably.  That's about it. 

Your cosmic-minded tyrant,

Andrew

Top Ten Zen #4: The Past Unbounded

Hi blog,

We're still going strong with our Zen series! I'm pleased with the productivity, so let me showcase our continued work ethic to you now!

Top Ten Zen

Andrew and Nick have compiled a list of Zen-like philosophies comprised firstly of a quote, an interpretation of said quote, and finally a story to drive their point home. This list can aid you in doing anything from completing a 100-mile race to surviving cancer, or obtaining any goal you set your mind to. 

Here are the previous posts for those who missed them:

1. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
2. Body follows mind
3. The faster you hurry, the slower you go

A crash from the past

"You are not bound by your past."

The Survivor’s Take:  It’s easy to get caught up with the perceived failures of the past and all the pain that you’ve dealt with. But the past exists as a separate entity, it can only affect you if you let it.

The Runner’s Take:  Don’t let past races, past performances or past climbs and descents decide the outcome of your present race.

Survivor’s Tales:  In my attempts to rebuild my life after cancer I have tried multiple times to return to school, with only limited success. My first attempt ended in hospitalization caused by a series of events set in motion by a nasty car crash. After a year of recovery I started taking classes at University of California Riverside, only to have my ankle collapse in less than a month, forcing me to withdraw. I spent the next three years taking community college classes before I felt ready to face university again. UC San Diego accepted me and I managed to stay for a whole three weeks before I got a call I’d been waiting ten months for, confirmation of a knee transplant. Once again, I left. Despite being forced to withdraw three times from school, I am still working toward getting back into a four-year university. I refuse to let my fears of another problem bully me into quitting. I have no intentions of succumbing to those thoughts, because my past can only affect me if I let it.

Mountain Tales:  Around 31 miles into Ronda del Cims, I’d gained on 7th, 6th and 5th place. I’d even managed to squeeze my way into 4th at the top of a climb called Bony de la Pica. I used everything I had to stay ahead of 5th place while I could. I fought him off, but in the end he passed me while descending down to the 48 mile aid station. Along the descent, 6th place passed me back and 7th was closing in quickly. It felt like all the effort I’d spent was for nothing. I arrived at the aid station only seconds off from all three runners, who were now blazing on ahead. I felt hopeless. I thought for a moment that if they were able to pass me once, they’d just do it again and that I’d best just settle into 7th while I could. I didn’t accept that though, I couldn’t. Our positions were not determined by a single descent. I had the rest of the race to decide my outcome. I was in control. Within 20 miles, I’d caught them all again and passed them with ease. I charged on ahead carving my own outcome and race.

A pass from the past

Of course, just because we are sharing our own extreme examples does not mean that these philosophies are all strictly for extreme situations. We share these because they can be used by anyone in the proper situations and we invite you, dear reader, to take these helpful tips into the world to use as you see fit. Feel free to hoard them or share them with others. It is both of our hope that these do some good somewhere, and so we wish you luck in your journey of a thousand Zen-filled steps.

Nick Hollon

Andrew Bundy

And Now, Some News!

Hi blog,

Still no hello back? Maybe someday you'll stop being so shy.

Anyways, news!

Doesn't look terribly healthy

After waiting over two weeks to get the results of my CT scans of my shoulders back, I got a call from the doctor's office on Monday (I called five times over the course of those two weeks) and the nurse actually asked me to come in just a couple hours later so the doctor could tell me what he saw. So, I went in and waited nearly an hour to see the doctor before he showed up and pulled up the images of my CT scans. (On a side note: I was told, based on the x-rays, that I would probably only be a candidate for a reverse shoulder replacement, which is the surgery of last resort and they don't like doing it on anyone over 70 because there's nothing to fall back on after it wears out in 8-10 years.) As it turns out, the scans showed that while the ball joint looked like hell, the socket of both shoulders are both relatively intact! The reason it took so long to get the results back is because my doctor wanted to confer with another surgeon up in San Francisco, and they both agreed that it's possible for them to do a partial shoulder replacement on both left and right shoulders! It's the least difficult of the surgeries, the one they would go to first, rather than the last-resort reverse replacement. A partial means that they would only replace the ball joint and leave the socket as it is. If the doctor is doing the surgery and he does the partial replacement and he doesn't like how it works, he can always switch to a total replacement (replacing both the socket and the ball) while he's still in there. This is (relatively) excellent news in terms of what kind of recovery and future I'm looking at. A partial replacement would mean that I have two more surgeries to fall back on after the first wears out. It means I won't have to hope that some new technique comes out soon like I would if I did the reverse. So, I guess I'm happy. Except...

It turns out that I won't actually be able to get my shoulder done until July 29th. Yea. Two months from now. The surgery scheduler at the doctor's office is working on finding some OR (operating room) time sooner so I don't have to wait that long, but I'm understandably concerned. Mostly because if I wait that long, I can't be sure that there won't be more damage to the joints and then I won't be able to do the partial replacement surgeries. Also, if I can get the first surgery done during the summer, recovery can happen before I go back to school in the fall and it would just make life a lot easier. Also, I despise waiting. I get too much time to think when I wait. And the pain has been getting worse in both shoulders on a nearly daily basis as well, so more waiting means more pain for longer, and quite frankly I don't really like pain all that much, so I'd rather get the surgery done as soon as possible.

My apologies for taking so long to relay this information, but hopefully you're more patient than I am dear reader and blog. I can smell the irony from here.

More news: I'm done with school for the semester (and did really well by the looks of it), so I can get back into writing again. I did a bit yesterday and it literally felt like my fingers had rusted up from misuse (despite using them constantly for typing all sorts of other things besides my book). The first 500 words or so took much longer than usual as my stiff and unresponsive fingers creaked and groaned and strained against my willpower until I managed to painstakingly put one word after another onto the electronic page. It got easier the more I wrote, and actually the whole experience was significantly less troublesome than I anticipated. Generally when I go on writing hiatuses it takes an enormous amount of effort to get back into the story, but this time I slipped back in with relative ease. I'm pleased.

I saw Nick today as well, the two of us got together and discussed a number of things regarding the books. We finished our book proposals and are now sending them out to editors and publishers to see what they think and if anyone would be interested. We also talked about how I should end my book (still not sure, since my issues are ongoing and I don't really have a very definitive stopping point on which to end on a high note), how much progress we've both made (not too much), and set goals for how much we need to get done by the next time we see each other. We also did some writing exercises and wrote for an hour. 

For the writing exercise, we wrote down a number of words and attached three other words to those, and then circled one and gave it to the other to write a five-minute short story about. My word was German. Here's what happened:

Helga and Zer Ax

Helga swung her ax and split the wood with one clean stroke. Her husband made an irritated huffing noise and shook his head. “Ja, you can choop zer vood like a man, but you vill never pass for one, for your breasts are larger than most boulders.”

Helga sighed and slammed the ax-head into the stump with barely a thought, her oxen-like muscles laughing at the pitiful ease of her task. “Ja dear hoosband, but you forget zat no vun vill care, because I can beat zem at zer arm wrestling.” She flexed her arm and a small shockwave ripped apart one wall of their meager shed. “Oopsie, sorry dear hoosband, I forget myself soomtimes.”

Yea. That's about it for now. I'll keep you updated dear blog when I find out more about the surgery dates. 

Also, I'll be going up to San Francisco next weekend to spend time with my best friend from when I was young. I'm excited, I haven't really traveled anywhere too far since I got diagnosed, and this will be the first time I've been on a plane in over ten years. I'm a little nervous, but that's far outweighed by my excitement to see my friend and also the enormous step forward it represents in my recovery.

That's all for now. TTFN.

Your Germanic Topiary (HUH???),
Andrew