Of course...PO 14 months

Of course...my appointment with the orthopod is this coming Monday and the reason I am going in is almost gone. A hard, round pea sized lump had come up in my scar line in the last month or so. It was quite palpable and one could even see it under the skin. But suddenly it is so much smaller that it is now hardly noticable. He is  going to think I am a hypochondriac. But I am keeping the appointment even if it seeems silly to go now.

I can brag that my operated side, the right shoulder, is now my best shoulder - arm. Because of some heavy duty work we are doing, my left arm is really sore. It's purely muscular, probably just due to all these months of relative inactivity. Even though myleft arm had to take up the slack for the recuperating right side, I wasn't doing much physical work. Now I am back in action.

It does seem like bodies are like cars. When you finally take it in, it does not make that worrisome noise anymore. I love it when cars or appliances fix themselves. My french door refrigerator has - had - a serious problem. Intermittently the freezer would freeze up, not allowing the cold air to circulate up into the upper refrigerator space. The fridge part would get too warm and a service call would ensue. I finally learned what to do... a hair dryer would unfreeze the air vents in the back of the freezer and solve the problem for a month or two. It was just a chronic situation. But, for unknown reasons, it has stopped freezing up. It hasn't happened in eight ot nine months. Don't know why but I am happy.

Back to shoulders... I met a man at a garage sale recently who was telling everyone about his rotator cuff repair surgery. You know how we all like to tell about our operations. :)  His surgery was more than a year past. He said his surgeon had told him that shoulder surgery took the longest to recover from, that no other joint in the body had the range of motion that the shoulder is expected to perforn. He said that it had taken a full year for his almost complete recovery.  I totally agree. And, while it seems like rTSA is a bigger deal, I think any shoulder procedure like a rotator cuff repair, is just as much to recover from.

My friend,who broke her wrist about the same time I had rTSA surgery, had to have surgery with a plate put in. She told me she, too, developed a pea sized lump along her scar.  She can't remember what her doctor said it was. Nothing bad. That is reassuring. Also hers went away with time. I just hope my little lump is still there Monday when I go in to see the doctor! Otherwise I am going to feel kind of foolish.

'Small problem...13 months PO

I am proof one should never ever brag that everything is perfect. Since my one year post op visit with my  orthopod I have a new, albeit small, problem. Well, I guess it is small.

Right in the scar line but under the skin a hard small palpable lump has appeared. It feels like a hard pea. Depending on the way I roll my shoulder forward or back, it is more or less prominent. Sometimes you can actually see it under the skin. I can't imagine what it is. I Showed it to one doctor and  he did not thnk it was a bad thing but said I should get it checked. He did not say what he thought it was.

So I have an appointment in about 8 days. My doctor is on vacation just now. That is why I am so  slow in getting it checked. I ssee him in about a week. I guess he is going to be forced to look at my scar finally..

Again, too sleepy to stay here. Talk to you later.

Medical Marijuana

There's so much news about medical marijuana these days, Legalization failed in a general election ballot in Florida not too long ago. But everyone agrees it will passs next time or two.

Previous studies have suggested that is is a treatment for a myriad of medical problems, including depression, anxiety and glaucoma. It was suggested as a treatment for post chemo nausea, boost the appetite in HIV patients, and ease symptoms of Tourettes Syndrome. It could leven help insomnia.

Alas, recent studies at Yale have taken a different position. Researchers studying over 6500 people concluded there is no evidence that marijuana helps any of these conditions. It does seem to relieve some of the muscle spasms associated with MS.


So for the first time in my life someone asked me if I wanted some medical grrade marijuana. being a "goody-two shoes, I said no of course. I really am a boring person. But it might be fun to be a living part of a great social experiment .I  wish everyone would report how it goes. But I would hate to find out it helps.

My typing has not tuned into gibberish yet but I am so sleepy that I need to go. Nite all.

Way past one year...13 Mo PO

It's been way more than one year since my shoulder surgery and I had thought I would stop writing the blog at one year. But it is turning out to be a hard thing to do... give it up, I mean. I would miss you all even though I don't even know if you are out there. So I have decided to stop counting the days and go with the number of months since surgery. And I won't try to write every day. I don't know what my schedule will be, probably irratic. We'll see how it goes.

Tonight I have only the health scare of the week to report. Can you remember back when microwave ovens first appeared on the scene. It must have been in the early 1980s. There appeared signs as you entered a 7-11 or even the office break room. They read something like "Microwave oven in use."I think the thought was that they could be dangerous to folks with pacemakers. I don't know if that ever was proven.

Well, it's time to put up the signs again. Except now you'll be wearing the sign. Researchers now report that smart phones can confuse things like pacemakers and defibrilators. The pacemaker can misintrepret interference from the smart phone and think it is a signal to shut down, causing the wearer to faint. A defibrilator might misundrstand a signal and cause the patient who has an implanted devise to receive a painful shock.

They recommend that you NOT carrry your phone in your chest pocket and do keep it at least seven inches away from the implanted device. Use the phone on the opposite side of your head from the device.

Maybe they should also warn us not to hug someone who is wearing a smart phone in a chest pocket!

Reminder call...PODay 377

It's true, I made fun of appointment reminder calls when I first started this blog. As I recall I received a reminder call five days before the day of the appointment. That's long enough for me to need a reminder for the reminder.

So, I knew I had an appointment yesterday, it was on the calendar. But the phone rang Friday and it was another doctors office to remind me of an appointment the same day, the same time. Oops! Thank goodness the second doctor's office is so accommodating. They rescheduled me for a couple days  out.

We keep a calendar, a paper one. And we keep a calendar app that reminds us a day before the appointment. But if I don't put it on there it can't be expected to remind us. Dear Husband tapes the appointment card to the door to his office but it can still get overlooked.

Often, even when our next appointment is one full year off, they will give us the lab orders for the next visit. Do they really think I am going to be able to find those orders twelve months later? I always have to call and ask for them to be resent. I am surprised with the rules for medical offices to be paperless now that there are paper orders. My primary care doctor is computerized but he keeps a paper copy of everything. I guess he is just old enough to not trust storing everything on the computer. So the EHR (electronic health record) is really double work.

Even trying to be paperless, there are papers. I have to sign at least four papers every visit. One is even just a paper attesting that I was really there on that date! On the other hand the hospital has one sign the electronic notepad. My signature on that thing  in no way resembles  my real signature.   But it always "says" signature accepted. Used to be they gave you a stylus, anymore they just say to use your finger tip to sign.

So, remembering to go to the doctor is a job and getting there and signing in is an even bigger task. I don't know how we ever managed to work and keep doctor appointments. Well we definitely didn't go to the doctor as often. And I think I was more organized.

You know that saying..if you want something done, give the job to a busy woman. I guess I am not busy enough.

Missing in action...PODay 376

i know, I know. Where did I go? I've been struggling to get my new blog up and running. I guess my brain does not work like a computer program. I stumble from event to entry without success and then suddenly something works and I have no idea why or how to do it again. I will admit that there have been some changes in Picasso, the photo site for storing your pictures to post on your blog and it works,at least for me, much better.

My new blog is about cooking, eating and making aprons and bibs, my new favorite hobby. There are no rules to creating an apron. No pattern that tells you what to do. The fabric decides the design. It's kind of like when Michelangelo was asked how he decided what to carve from a piece of marble. He replied that the statue was in the marble, he just released it. Not that I am comparing my hobby to great art...but the apron is there, in the vintage tablecloth or the linen table runner or even the 70s party dress. How fun it is to repurpose a piece of cloth and give it a new life.

But, unfortunately, there are no new ideas. When Dear Husband started wearing a hand towel around his neck to catch crumbs and dribbles, I thought I could come up with something better looking. He, and certainly not I, was not ready for the adult version of the terry cloth baby bib. My great idea was the "bub."  I swear it was my idea! But la belle fille is in Idaho and saw my idea in a upscale kitchen shop. NO! Oh well, at least it is an upscale kitchen shop.

Why a "bub?" Do you watch Seinfeld? Kramer and George's father saw the commercial need for a male bra. But they needed a more macho name than bra. Naturally. So it was dubbed the "bro." Well, not many men think a bib is very masculine but a "bub" ? Jack Nicklaus would wear a bub, jack Nicholson would wear a bub. Heck, Jack Palance would wear a bub while doing one handed push ups.

As tidy as we women are, there could be occasions when we might need a bib. But there's that name again. We do tend to be a bit more secure than the guys but still, it's all in the image. So if it's not a bib and not a bub...it's a bab! With a long a, like babe. I've got to find one of those pronunciation mark things like in a dictionary. I bet I can copy the mark over. We'll see.

So to my loyal followers...I'm going to try to keep both blogs going. Maybe posting in an alternating manner. Here's the address of my new blog... Bibbitties.blogspot.com

 I'll see you there. 

Youth is wasted on the young PODay 375

I looked out our kitchen window a few days ago and lo and behold, one of our palm trees was dead. When did that happen? How did it happen? And so suddenly. Usually death comes slowly to a palm tree. Dead fronds fall to the ground or something. The tree just doesn't suddenly give up the ghost. I don't think it was struck by lightning.

At any rate, a dead palm tree has to go. So I called our neighbors' tree guy, an older guy with an old truck, a trailer perpetually full of palm fronds and ladders (his main job is trimming palm trees), four younger guys who do the grunt work, and a dog. You're visualizing a rotweiller or a pitbull, aren't you? No, his dog is some kind of miniature white ball of fluff. He sits in the truck looking for the world like a miniature french version of a junk yard dog.

The "team" arrived within thirty minutes of the phone call ready to work. The purr of the chain saw warming up filled the quiet morning. Mr. Tree Man attacked the thick fibrous trunk of the palm first cutting it off at about 4' above ground, then slicing it into 3' to 6' sections. The crew, sometimes two together, sometimes one guy alone, picked up the sections, military pressed them above their heads and hoisted them up and over the built up walls of the trailer. The act was so effortless, so smoothly executed.. No torn rotatator cuff among them. No tender bicept, tricept or deltoid muscle.  Of course, being female, I was never that strong but I do rememner tackling physical jobs with a gusto that is no longer in my repertoire.

Some years ago, not long after laproscopic knee surgery, I was hobbling into the grocery store. There were three worker type guys ahead of me. I was struck by the power of their walk, the spring in their step. It was like watching John Travolta in the openning scenes of Saturday Night Fever. And are
these  young(er) people even aware of the effortless power of a youthful body? Of course not.

I always knew old people walked funny. What I didn't realize is that they walk that way because "it" hurts. That, and the ever present risk of falling, It's a wonder that we are out there walking around at all.  http://youtu.be/okpCx87orOA  (Touch the link twice to see and hear the video)

correctedpost 374

I'm trying to do better about using the right tool for the job. I no longer use a table knife as a screw driver. Mostly it is to save the table knife. If I am hanging a picture I go and get a small hammer instead of grabbing a high heel shoes. Fact is as I have gotten older there aren't too many stilletto heels available here. I love kitchen things so I usually have the esoteric kitchen apparatus like a lemon zester or a ginger grater. I have one kitchen drawer that  overflows with cooking hand tools                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

So when I wanted to replace the battery in a watch today I went and got  that hox of miniature screw drivers, the ones you use to replair your glasses frame or unscrew that tiny screw that is holding parts to the packaging of the newly purchased electronic item. That's a whole other post...don't you hate the way things are packaged now so that you need a utility knife, a screw driver and a pair of pliers to remove the new house portable phone from the box?

Back to the subject though. I was experienced. A few days ago I took the back off of another watch, infrequently worn, and went to the drug store and bought a replacement battery and installed it. The only problem was that the drug store purchased battery cost more than my jeweler charges to provide the battery and put it in. Surely there was a less expensive source of watch batteries.

Omigosh! A Google search took me to Amazon where I learned I could  buy fifteen (15!) "373" Eveready watch batteries with free shipping.for fifty cents motre than one such battery at the drug store.  I placed my order. I will have enough batteries to last the rest of my life! But for now I had to open the watch of the moment and learn what size battery it uses. Hopefully, a 373. I found the little notch under the edge of the bezel back on my watch. I placed the tip of the screwdriver into the notch (it didn't seem to drop into the little groove like it should have). I pried, nothing happened. I twisted the blade, no success. I tried the slightly bigger miniature screw driver. I tried the smaller. Nothing happened, Well, other than nearly stabbing myself with the point of the screwdriver as it slipped out of the supposed groove and skidded across the back of the watch leaving a big scratch and stopping millemeters from my fingers of my left hand which were gripping the watch case.

An hour later and an unknown number of attempts to remove the back with every conceivable household instrumment that one could imagine might work, the back had not budged. I even slathered the back of the watch with penetrating oil in case it was corrodid and that was why it wold not pop off. No luck.In frustration and despair I scooped everything up and went to the jewelers. She took my watch, walked behind her workbench and immediately I heard a loud snap. "Was that the back popping off," I asked. It was! "How did you do that?"

With the right tool, of course. A watch back remover. The basic model available on amazon for $4.00! It kind of resembles an oyster knife but with a short stocky blade. My kingdom for a watch back remover! I am definitely getting one of those!

Next I will want the press that makes it easy and efficient to put the back on after installing the new battery. I wonder how a hammer or heavy pliers would work. I'll let you know.


And I wonder when I will start realizing the savings from buying my batterys on line.

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Posted By Blogger to  Reverse Total shoulder replacement surgery, A Patient's Point of View at 7/02/2015 10:56:00 AM

problem of the day..PO Day 374

I don't know why post 374 has lines through all the words. I don't know how to get rid of them. And I don't know why there is a big gap of just lines after the first paragraph.

I don't know why the stock market fell so much two days ago. It's not like the Greece thing was a surprise.

I don't know why countries choose to go to war. It seems like such an irrational act. Like if ou have a disagreement with your neighbor, just bomb their house.

I don't  know why we have to suffer and then die. Isn't dying enough? Why can't we just slip away?

 I don't know why time goes so fast when you're having fun and so slowly when you are miserablee? Did Einstein explain that?

I guess there is a lot I don't know and why there are lines through all the text in post 374 is pretty low on the list of what is important. But it is the issue (no one has problems anymore) of the moment.

So sorry. Guess you will have read between the lines. :)

The Bad and The Good..PO Day 373

There is an article in The Week Magazine about medical professionals who scam the system. The Department of Justice reports that 243 people have been arrestedfor stealing $712 million from Medicare. Forty-six of the 243 were doctors, nurses, pharmacy owners or other medical professionals  who billed the government for fraudulent therapy sessions or prescriptions.

I know that sounds terrible. They say fraud probably consumes ten percent of the total medicare budget of $500 billion annually. Well, put that way, it is terrible. But if only 46 medical professionals or even 243 medical related persons out of all the medical care related people in the US are scamming the system, well that's not so bad. How many doctors are there in the country?   According to Dr. Google, in 2009 there were 970,000 physicians in the US. The number of nurses woud be much higher. I am guessing the number of pharmacists would be fewer.

Being a medical professional does not weed out bad people. But in spite of this latest information, I continue to believe most doctors and their staff are honest and hard working. I have personal experience with one such doctor...

The radiologist, Dr. My Hero,  who saw my first post op visit xray, is the one who called me and aaid "Go immediately to the emergency room." We thought of him today because Dear Husband had an xray and picked up the report. It was Dr. "My Hero" whose name appeared on the report today. So in contrast to the medical professionals scamming the system, Dr. Hero returned a modest gift card I sent him for being so alert and diagnosing my pneumothorax. His note thanked me but said he was just doing is job and could not accept such a gift, however small.


What a difference! More doctors like him and fewer con artists!