Why I did it now...PO Day 123

I can't believe I was brave enough to go forward with reverse shoulder replacement surgery. Part of it is that there appears to be some self-preservation thing that protects us from remembering pain. I can intellectually recall the discomfort my right arm provided but I can't conjure up the misery that it brought me. More than that, though, was my blissful ignorance of the seriousness of rTSA. Now, when I read some website where a surgeon calls the procedure "a last resort," it scares the beejeebies out of me.

My surgeon, Dr. Kai, to his credit, did stress that there was no deadline for doing the surgery. He explained that my situation was not one that was going to get worse because I chose to wait a week or a month or a year. But neither was it going to get better without surgery. From  the day when I committed to being operated until my surgery date was more than five weeks and it seemed like forever. It was long enough for me to see other doctors and get clearance, attend the joint replacement class my hospital sponsors, fill the freezer with food to nuke post op, buy hospital pajamas that I never had a chance to wear, and get very cold feet.

But I think the tipping factor was one of those anonymous politically oriented emails that you don't know whether to believe or not. This one focused on future changes in Medicare coverage under the new affordable healthcare act. The author explained that hip and knee surgery were consuming a huge chunk of the healthcare budget and there would be new guidelines in the upcoming years that would limit the availability of the surgery to patients over some arbitrary age. Since no one really knows what all is in the affordable healthcare act, I didn't know whether to believe it or not. But I was afraid that if I waited, the option might no longer be available to me. It certainly is true that there have been some significant changes in Medicare coverage already and looks like more to come.

As it turns out it was the right thing to do. My shoulder is SO much better, the awful pain is gone, I can use my right arm almost normally again, and I didn't die from a pneumothorax. I'd say a pretty good outcome. But having the surgery is not a decision to be cavalier about. I'm glad I had a surgeon who didn't try to frighten me into being operated. Instead, it was an anonymous, probably bogus political email that did it!




Archive timeline: 2014: May and June - preparing for surgery, July - surgery and post op problems, August - recovery and physical therapy, September - thinking medically, October--