Setback

At the 3-month mark post shoulder replacement surgery, the pain was still interfering with my range of motion. Then I had my follow up appointment with the surgeon. He asked where the pain was located, touched the different areas I mentioned and found a sensitive spot at the back of the shoulder. That is when I heard the words no surgery patient wants to hear, “let’s take some x-rays and then we will talk.”

Although the x-rays did not show any problems, the doctor started talking about stress fractures, indicating that this can happen with the reverse shoulder replacement, especially in older women with osteopenia. He then put a stop to all the assisted range of motion exercises I was doing (pulleys, cane exercises, etc.). I was restricted to completely passive range of motion exercises, like table slides and wall slides and instructed to use the sling if necessary. I always found the wall slides a bit painful, so the jury was out on that one. I was back in four weeks, so my thought right now was just s**t, my recovery was set back at least 4 weeks.

So, what was I doing to cope? I had to put the cross-stitch project on hold, since that seemed to bother my shoulder. The weather had improved a bit, so I did get out for a few walks, but not as much as I would like. I did notice we had a few new visitors to the bird feeder. We did not usually see purple finches, but several pairs were hanging around. I had my husband set up my camera with the long lens by the window. Since I could not get my arm high enough to take pictures, I was using a camera utility that let my camera talk to my laptop. The package included a remote shutter release.

I was also still reading a ton of books. This month I enjoyed a nonfiction book about the pianist, Van Cliburn, called Moscow Nights by Cliff Nigel. My book club book was an historical novel called Skylark by Paula McLain. It switched back and forth between two timelines. One followed a woman in the 1600s who wanted to create clothing dyes and was put in an asylum for daring to take on a man’s role. The other follows a doctor who works in an asylum in 1939 and helped Jews escape through the tunnels of Paris. Finally, a light read to lift my spirits, a book called Twilight Garden, by Sarah Nash Adams, a story about two neighbors who do not get along but share a garden space. When they receive photos and fliers about what the garden looked like before, they join forces to restore the garden to its former glory.