As you’ve probably guessed by the fact that I’m answering comments, I’m home from surgery. The bone-shaving procedure apparently went well. The surgeon told Chareva he also discovered that I had torn a bicep tendon at some point, so he reattached it.
In addition to general anesthesia, they gave me something called a shoulder blocker. It’s like having an entire shoulder on Novocain. I have absolutely no sensation from the elbow to the neck. You could stab me in the shoulder and I wouldn’t know it. That, of course, will wear off. I’m supposed to start taking Percocet later this evening.
I won’t be able to shower or sleep in bed for a few days. I’ll be living in my La-Z-Boy recliner. We’ve already got The area set up with my iPad, charger, phone, TV remotes, a video adapter to put my iPad screen on the big TV, etc. I can’t really type yet, but the dictation feature On the iPad Pro is pretty accurate … although as you may have noticed, it has a bad habit of capitalizing words for no apparent reason.
I appreciate everyone’s good wishes. I feel pretty good, considering. Time to kick back and binge-watch a couple of shows and catch up on some Lynda.com tutorials.
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WELCOME HOME! We missed you; you were gone for sooooo long! (Oh, wait… that was by my old-lady time… not the clock!) Heal quick so you can get back to farming and making us jealous!
It feels like I’ve been gone for hours.
Happy news! You may be a bit more sore when the blocker wears off, but it’s a good technique. My orthopedic surgeon uses blockers for hip and knee replacements, which lets him use less general anesthetic and promotes swifter healing.
That’s with the anesthesiologist told me. Made sense.
WELCOME HOME! We missed you; you were gone for sooooo long! (Oh, wait… that was by my old-lady time… not the clock!) Heal quick so you can get back to farming and making us jealous!
It feels like I’ve been gone for hours.
Happy news! You may be a bit more sore when the blocker wears off, but it’s a good technique. My orthopedic surgeon uses blockers for hip and knee replacements, which lets him use less general anesthetic and promotes swifter healing.
That’s with the anesthesiologist told me. Made sense.
I got better results dictating to iOS if when I’m through I hit the keyboard icon instead of the microphone icon. If I hit the keyboard icon it will lower case things that were uppercase and shouldn’t be. Most of the time works out OK. They are cheat sheets on using Siri dictation that helps you to work this out better.
I got better results dictating to iOS if when I’m through I hit the keyboard icon instead of the microphone icon. If I hit the keyboard icon it will lower case things that were uppercase and shouldn’t be. Most of the time works out OK. They are cheat sheets on using Siri dictation that helps you to work this out better.
Thanks, I’ll try that.
Tom, I’ll bet your surgeon will be amazed at the speed of your recovery. Get well soon!
Welcome home Tom and speedy recovery! The shoulder blocker sounds like fun.
So glad you’re back. Stuff sometimes goes wrong in the most routine procedures and I’m a worrier. What would I do without my anchor to keep me from being led down all those rabbit holes out there? Just recently I’ve seen the Anointed’s ugly head pop up in an unexpected place when I recognized “You’re just not doing it right/hard enough/following the program perfectly”. This from a person/site that I respected and learned from, but now beginning to sound a little desperate. It seems the magic just isn’t working for everyone.
Anyway, heal fast. You’re a treasure.
Thank you. I appreciate everyone’s good wishes for a speedy recovery.
Tom, I’ll bet your surgeon will be amazed at the speed of your recovery. Get well soon!
When it comes to rehab, I agree when they say, “Do what the doctors tell you!”
Welcome home Tom and speedy recovery! The shoulder blocker sounds like fun.
Get well, and hoping for a speedy recovery! Take the time to rest and reflect! You’ve done so much for so many of us… time off is well-deserved!
So glad you’re back. Stuff sometimes goes wrong in the most routine procedures and I’m a worrier. What would I do without my anchor to keep me from being led down all those rabbit holes out there? Just recently I’ve seen the Anointed’s ugly head pop up in an unexpected place when I recognized “You’re just not doing it right/hard enough/following the program perfectly”. This from a person/site that I respected and learned from, but now beginning to sound a little desperate. It seems the magic just isn’t working for everyone.
Anyway, heal fast. You’re a treasure.
Thank you. I appreciate everyone’s good wishes for a speedy recovery.
When it comes to rehab, I agree when they say, “Do what the doctors tell you!”
Gal at work, in her 30s or maybe 40s now broke her wrist bad and ignored the DIY physical therapy and isn’t right yet (though she might well be playing it to get away with ever less work…) The WWII vet now in his 90s who had a hip replaced? He did what they said to do. As soon as he could, he did it morning AND evening though it was ‘once a day’. Doctor told him he was “…recovering at twice the speed of people half your age!”
He does have a sensible doc, fwiw…
Vet: Doc, can I keep $DOING_THING?
Doc: It’s worked for you so far, probably shouldn’t stop now.
Get well! Be careful with that percocet. We need you around here and don’t want you to become a junkie. BTW, will you be able to resume your weight training?
Get well, and hoping for a speedy recovery! Take the time to rest and reflect! You’ve done so much for so many of us… time off is well-deserved!
Get well! Be careful with that percocet. We need you around here and don’t want you to become a junkie. BTW, will you be able to resume your weight training?
I’ve been getting by with about half the recommended dose of Percocet. I’m not sure how the torn bicep will affect returning to regular workouts. We didn’t know about that issue going into the surgery.
Interesting about the torn bicep. I wonder could the doc tell how long ago that happened. Doesn’t really seem like something you wouldn’t notice. 😉
I’m with you on using the least amount of main medicine you can, but don’t ignore the common instructions to “stay ahead of the pain”. That’s why you see dosing like “every 4 hours” instead of “as needed”. It’s a balancing act for sure.
That would be “pain” medicine, not “main”. Somehow “main medicine” made me laugh. 🙂
I hope Percocet is never my main medicine.
I was already getting pains in my shoulder, which got considerably worse after a workout one day at the gym. That’s probably when I damaged the bicep.
I get by on as little pain killer as possible because I don’t want to damage my liver.
Best of luck with your continuing recovery. Modern Medicine can be amazingly good with acute illnesses/injuries. It’s the chronic stuff they get so amazingly wrong. It’s like two completely different professions.
Best of luck with your continuing recovery. Modern Medicine can be amazingly good with acute illnesses/injuries. It’s the chronic stuff they get so amazingly wrong. It’s like two completely different professions.
Agreed. Without modern surgery, I would’ve lost the full use of my left arm 15 years ago. I would’ve been hobbled with the knee injury five years ago. Despite the post surgical pain, I have felt mostly gratitude since the procedure.
I hope you have a swift recovery, and here is a link you might appreciate. File it under Duh! That makes sense!
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-11/nioa-hbg110317.php
I hope you have a swift recovery, and here is a link you might appreciate. File it under Duh! That makes sense!
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-11/nioa-hbg110317.php
Just think, in only a couple of decades maybe they will stop feeding Alzheimers patients on a high carb low fat grain based (vegetarian) diet . . .
. . . just got back from seeing my doctor for the first time in almost a year – I needed the form for a thyroid (TSH) test, and some antibiotic eyedrops for blepharitis, literally the first infection I’ve had for over a decade.
In the twelve years since I first saw her she has slowly come around in her thinking. Originally she was paranoid about the “inevitable harm” of not “basing every meal on starchy carbohydrates” and “heart healthy” vegetable oils.
Last year she noted that “by now we would have expected you to be on two or three diabetes medications” – in addition to the statins, BP meds, H2 blockers and antidepressants I have now deleted, well except for a minimal dose of Amlodipine. I pointed her to David Unwin on Twitter and suggested she read around some of the other doctors and researchers who contribute there and elsewhere.
This year she said “you realise you are about twenty years ahead of your time! One day we will all be recommending this!”
She was running very late, and rather frazzled, so I didn’t stop for a chat, otherwise I would have pointed out that actually I am about fifty years BEHIND the times – this was all well known before “low fat” blew common sense into the weeds. I think I’ll write, she has evolved in her thought processes quite nicely.
I did ascertain though that she had read absolutely nothing about Tim Noakes, Gary Fettke et al, so obviously the press embargo here has been disappointingly successful.
Sadly it’s some of her younger and trendier colleagues who are still embedded in Conventional Wisdom, including especially one who I was recommended as being a “great diagnostician” – which he probably is, and he is probably equally great with acute illness. Chronic and especially metabolic diseases , not so much, and of course they simply weren’t around before the modern “epidemics” happened so have no experience of a world where fat people and diabetics were rare, as was cancer, Alzheimers, etc.
OUCH…had that done myself – but it’s not as painful as foot surgery. I was surprised. Wishing you a speedy recovery – (and thanks for Fat Head – loved every minute of it. Very well done!)
OUCH…had that done myself – but it’s not as painful as foot surgery. I was surprised. Wishing you a speedy recovery – (and thanks for Fat Head – loved every minute of it. Very well done!)