Will My Body Ache Again?

MY Body Aches

April, 2009

It’s hard to know sometimes why things happen but, recently, everything seems to be backfiring on me. 

Here I am….I run, I swim, I lift weights, I dance, I ski, I used to play tennis like a madman, and I still run all around town like one.  And in years past, I did mess up my right knee (medial meniscus) from my tennis and had/have bilateral inguinal hernias from my weight lifting (only one was repaired), but nothing serious and nothing that can’t be managed or just ignored.  Even the colonoscopies would be tolerable (oh, I love that Versed) if you didn’t have to first drown yourself in that white milky slime euphemistically labeled “Go Lightly”!

How could it be then, that a fall to the ground while cautiously walking to my car on a dark private street – could thump my right shoulder and instantly snap my rotator cuff muscle tendons sending them almost 4 centimeters downstream toward my elbow, leaving me incapacitated on the asphalt street, helpless and in pain, enough so to have me crying all night long.   And the aftermath is that I am now left with a shoulder that feels like someone intentionally cut some and scrambled the remaining wires connecting my arm to my shoulder girdle.  After 3 months, I now have a background of dull aching and constant pain, no power or control to lift my right arm above my shoulder line, and the stabbing pain that bites me with every movement that doesn’t want to happen – when I feel my shoulder muscles rolling over one another or fighting each other for space or when they buckle, skip, and/or trip with confusion.   And when I look at myself and the alignment of my shoulders, I may be seeing an illusion but they now look unequal with my right shoulder drooping lower as compared to the uninjured one presumably from the loss of support of my rotator cuff.

So what’s the big deal?  Despite all of this drama, I can’t help but feel lucky.  Something has happened to me that wants to see the world as good and to emphasize the positives of life rather than to exaggerate the drama…the cup IS half full, but my life is at least half past, so half full is full full when you think of the whole of what is possibly left rather than the full range starting from birth to now, …, which in part can no longer be returned to me (sorry, I even confused myself with this one).

My buoyant view maybe a byproduct of my recent trip to India.  To be sure, some of the richest people in the world are East Indians, but the millions of poor are so plentiful and so in your face that it’s hard to pass the day anywhere in India without being reminded of their destitution and desolation. On the street, at the train station, stopping at an intersection…….at shopping centers, monuments, museums, and even or I should say especially places like the Taj Mahal…anywhere and everywhere -  Its different than so many other places….e.g., millions are also poor and desperate in Brazil, their favelas (shantytowns) are out of the direct line of the tourist areas.  In India, it’s near impossible to avoid some level of interaction and/or confrontation with street side communities and the impoverished, shoeless, hungry, undernourished and filthy children, their adult counterparts, the infirmed all begging for a few rupees, or whatever else is in your pocket.  And my point is that you cannot help be upbeat and thankful for your position and fortune when you compare your life (or anyone else’s that you know) with these poor unfortunates in India; any level of analysis will likely yield the same conclusion.

By I am no longer in India but rather in Ocean City, MD waiting for my hour in the operating room.  It has been unseasonably cold this winter and now spring, but when the sun comes out, everyone here gravitates to the beach and ocean.  My sister’s condo sits right there with nothing but ocean to study from her balcony, and even when it’s too cold to walk the beach, it’s usually fine sitting up there gazing down at the ocean, the beach, and those few brave soles who walk their dogs, mothers, girl/boy friends or their children dressed warmly and looking out of place….at least to someone who comes from Hawaii.

Those of us lucky enough to live in Hawaii or the Pacific coast seldom feel envy for those living on the Atlantic.   The water is colder, grey blue instead of aqua marine in places, fickle with frequently changing temperatures and weather conditions, and just plane boring.  The ocean here IS truly boring - the long stretches of wide beach and massive chunks of ocean encroaching on the surviving ground cover and decaying refuse reach toward a procession of endless grey condominium buildings that rise 5 to 10 stories high that blocks it’s escape.  

Still, the ocean is mystifying and melodic; the waves crash quietly in places and thunderous in others.  The music of the ocean is synchronized with its dance of waves converging and breaking in a soothing rhythm; miles of patient soldiers are lined up waiting for their turn to emerge from beneath the sea and announce their presence, to tackle the shore or at other times, to gently tickle the sand.  Why does the ocean hold such power, mystery and universal appeal?  Some of us can think better with the ocean as a backdrop taking the opportunity to heighten one’s self awareness.  Others simply appreciate the wonders of nature through the power and immensity of the ocean. 

For someone like me, who loves the ocean enough to regularly swim in it, or at least did so before my right shoulder decided to betray me, the ocean is a special place …………………….. But this week was different: I sat somewhat deflated and reserved, obediently watching the ocean while obsessively pondering my fate.

Fast forward 2 years:

April, 2011

Well, I never had a chance to finish this piece, but writing it helped me get through the week of waiting for surgery.  It allowed me to bolster my confidence and attitude and perspective for what was about to occur.  I didn’t dwell on the fact that my chances of success with surgery were low…my tendons were torn and worn (shown on the MR scan – worn probably from 3 decades of whipping arm movements while serving in tennis balls cross court).  The shredded tendons landing almost 4 centimeters downstream from the insertion site were inflexible and weak.   The surgeon in Honolulu wanted to use general anesthesia and cut through the deltoid muscle to get to the injured rotator cuff, and told me the odds were not in my favor.  Even by my estimates, the best chances for surgical success ranged in the neighborhood of 20% for some level of long-term benefit.  Indeed, my Honolulu surgeon admitted that he wasn’t sure he had anything he could truly offer me. 

I naturally pleaded with him for some better odds, and he thankfully referred me to a surgeon in New York at the Hospital for Special Surgery. The rest of the story is uneventful.  The anesthesia was local; the surgery took just under an hour and was accomplished using an arthroscopic approach.  The recovery was mostly uneventful except for fighting internal demons (I’ll leave that for a separate writing).  In any case, my right arm and shoulder now work fine, and if it is less functional than prior to my injury, I cannot tell.   I am lifting less weight than before - 115-135 pounds on the bench press, still adequate but a far cry from the 220 at my most fit level of weight training.  But the New York doctor told me I was not to exceed 150 pounds which might threaten the integrity of the surgical attachment by placing too much strain or tear the weak tendons that he locked into place. So far, so GOOD!

MY Body doesn’t ache

May, 2011

Two years ago, I was faced with a challenge that consumed my every moment, odds that were not in my favor and the burden that I was somewhat responsible for my own injury.  This consumed my existence from the moment of the fall until the realization sometime distant after surgery that I would regain most if not all of my shoulder function.  I’m actually glad to remind myself of this feeling now in 2011, two years after the fact, and to count my blessings and good fortune for my healing.  So at this moment, my body doesn’t ache.

Will my Body ache again?

June, 2011

But once again, I am in a fearful dread just like before the rotator cuff surgery when I was sitting in Ocean City.  But instead of my shoulder betraying me, it is my prostate gland.  Indeed, my Prostatic Specific Antigen or PSA has risen and prompted my urologist to recommend a biopsy looking for prostate cancer that will be accomplished at the end of this week.  Recounting the memories of the past has been an effective way of diverting my attention from the present and the many potential scenarios facing me in the future………………