Can you ever disconnect?

You know how when you buy something nowadays and they ask you for your email address...do you ever think about why they want it? Are they wanting to follow up, see if your new dress fits or your toaster is satisfactory? Are they going to use it to notify you if there is recall on the item? Probably not.

Remember when you first had email and you were thrilled to receive any kind of internet communication. And when you sent a friend a message and then callled them to tell them to check their email. What innocent days! Little did we realize what was coming.

Now we are innundated with emails. Our doctor's office sends emails. Church and school use it to communicate. The bank sends statements, the power company sends our bill by email. The airline reminds us of our upcoming flight. Our favorite hotel chain wants to know when we are going to take a trip. High school classmates are looking for us and current friends are keeping tabs on us. Receipts for purcchases are easier to keep track of in email form rather than as slips of paper in our purse.All that is okay, mostly.

But the ads! The solicitations! Every night, in the middle of the night, little unseenn gnomes hit "SEND" and my mailbox fills up with  coupons and flyers. Links to sales and bargains click into view pretending to be from firends who want to share their weight loss secrets. New shoes,  presecription drugs, worthwhile and dubious charities, mom and pop stores and major corporations, all knock on my virtual front door. Do I want a female companion from the Balkins? Will I rescue my distant acquaintance stuck in Greece with no money? Surely I will invest $10,000. to help free up a
million dollars being held hostage in some third world fiduciary morass. From legitimate entrepreneurs to blatant con artists, they queue up in my mail box hoping to catch my eye.

Scroll to the bottom and the more traditional ones offer an "unsubscribe" link. How many times I have clicked that! A promise that I will no longer receive notices from them appears on screeen. But has it ever worked? Have i even once managed to divorce the solicitor? Not yet. But hope springs eternal and I persevere. But I alwaus wonder if asking to unsubscribe actually adds my email address to some other list of victims.

In the meantime I slog through my inbox trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, deleting and deleting and hopefully not deleting a message from you!

Less than perfect 17 months PO

I wore a smock like dress a couple days ago. It had a kind of square scoop neck, not too low cut but wide. For the first time it was apparent there is an asymmetry between my two front shoulders. The unoperared side has some flesh or fat under the skin so the transition from pectoral muscle to the head of the humerus is smooth and full. On the operated side the scar vertically bisects that junction, there is a lack of fat beneath the skin and that makes the bony humerus more prominent.

Am I complaining? Heavens, no!  I continue to be very satisfied with my surgical result. I do still have some limitation of movement. I can't comfortably move my right arm behind my back. I can't lift heavy items above my shoulder height on that side. I tend not to roll on that side to sleep. And I do most of my heavy lifting with the other arm. But I have very good, nearly full extension of that arm. I have very good development of the deltoid muscle, necessary to raise and lift the arm after surgery. And my flexibility has improved so putting on and taking off a shirt or jacket is easier, if not always graceful.

Compared to the limitation of movement prior to surgery and the constant pain, I have nothing to complain about.

Unfortunately there are no guarantees with the human body and surgery. I guess that's one reason doctors want you to wait so long before going the surgery route. If you are truly miserable, even a less than perfect surgical result is an improvement. Interestingly, I read a study that reported, based on the SST ( Simple shoulder test ), patients were typically more satisfied with the surgical results that were their surgeons. I guess the doctors want things to be perfect and we just want to feel better.

What else Is there to do?

It's 430 AM and I am wide awake. Sounds terrible but it is usually 2:00 AM when I am wide awake and looking for something to do. If you live alone the possibilities are unlimited. You can run the vacuum cleaner, fire up your Jane Fonda exercise video, rearrange the living room furniture or organize your closet. But common courtesy for the innocent bed partner demands both relative quietude and reasonable darkness. Both are hard to come by in this household. Who needs anightlight? Our darkness twinkles with red and green power strips and sleeping appliances.

But such light is not adequate to balance one's check book or do your fingernails or read a novel.  And a 100 watt bulb in the downstairs bedroom has a way of twisting and bending its light rays so they creep up the stairs and shine in the eyes of a sleeping husband. Thank goodness for the illuminated screen of an iPad. With its brightness value turned down the glow from the screen is tolerable. Used to be our neighbor's Spotlight, mounted on his dock, shined directly in our bedroom window. Enough to cast a shadow. But either the bulb burned out, the salt air has corroded the connections or some irate neighbor has taken a BB gun to the problem.

At any rate I have decamped to the upstairs porch, not quite weather tight but devoid of mosquitoes and creepy crawlers. The ubiquitous LEDs are replaced by stars that twinkle through the sunblock fabric curtains and the night has that damp, sweet feel  of  air not cycled through an air conditioning system. In old times, houses in the south had sleeping porches where people could escape the swelteringly interior rooms and catch a cool night breeze. The invention of air conditioning brought progress and industry to the south but a hermetically sealed house separates us from nighttime serenades by crickets and frogs, whippoorwills and splashing mullet. Progress has its price.

If I had to go to work at 8:00 AM I could not be so sanguine about my insomnia. But retirement has its privileges and one of them is napping on demand. I do have an early doctor's appointment. While
not my orthopod, he will ask me how my shoulder is and I will be happy to report my operated shoulder is the least of my medical problems! 

Contractors, subcontractors and inconstant contractors

Because of our house project we have been dealing with repairmen more than usual. Previously when we had a big project we would have a general contractor who oversaw everything. That worked great. The contractor was always well connected. He had every kind of tradesman who worked for him and answered to him. Showing up for this job meant they would be called on for other jobs and there was a level of reliability  of when and how and who.

But we are on our own for this project. Generally we are dealing with a company; Sparks Electrical, Down the Drain Plumbers...a business with an office, a secretary, a boss and a schedule. The repairman who comes out drives a company truck, punches a time clock (perhaps virtual) and wears a shirt with a company logo on it. He shows up timely, charges what you were told on the phone, and gives you an itemized bill when he finishes.

Sometimes a job.is less well defined. The lawnman, the tree trimmer, the guy with a pressure cleaner, the dirt man (a dump truck and hole half way to China),  the tradesman who  has a cell phone, a wife with an adding machine and no county license.

They are usually cute young guys full of personality and chatter and you can't help but like them.  Even when they promise they'll be there to do the job Thursday morning and there is no sign of them. They are repentant when you finally reach them, their voice mail box is almost always full. When they do finally show up to work, they do a good job and promise to not let you down the next time.

So why does history repeat itself? Why are we again waiting for a handyman to show up, to do what he said he would, to charge the expected fee without additions, to return as he promised, and
complete the work as we hoped it would be? Are we cursed by some cosmic alignment that sets events spinning to thwart their true desire to show up and do the job?

There is no curse. There isn't any weird alignment of the stars to explain it, no full moon to excuse it. It's much more logical than that hocus pocus stuff. It is practically Darwinian, a modern example of natural selection. A  tradesman who can meet a schedule, wear a clean company shirt, maintain a
valid driver's license to drive a company vehicle...that fellow has a regulat, albeit boring, job with health insurance, paid vacation and a pay check on every Friday. But those apparently desirable qualities select out the adventurist, devil may care, possibly hard working though independent thinking and acting fellow who chooses consciously or unconsciously to march to a different drum.

When I think of it that way, that I must accept the negative to get the positive,  that genes not unreliability defeat scheduling, I can be more tolerant of  the inconstant. contractor.

Ah, someone missed me. I have so much missed my blog but I'm afraid I have exhausted the subject of reverse total shoulder arthroplasty.

I did leave everyone hanging in suspense over my last doctor visit. Well, the little bump did turn out to be a stitch that did not absorb or dissolve and has walled itself off, so to speak. Dr. Kai said nothing to worry about. With time it may disappear or not. It could even enlarge or become infected. If that happens, he will give me an antibiotic. For now it is as small as it has been and I have quit thinking about it.

Starting a little over a month ago we have been working like Trojans to clean out and get a house ready to sell. (Those Trojans must have been some hard workers to merit that analogy that has survived through the ages)  Anyway, my orthopod would be appalled at what my poor right shoulder has been asked to do. Cleaning, moving furniture, ferreting out what to keep and what has to go, having two garage sales at two different houses, boxing up the leftovers and delivering them to the appropriate charity thrift shops, incorporating things from the second house into the first house... Wow, there has been no time to even think about a blog!

The latter, combining cherished pieces of furniture or wall pictures or paintings, from two houses into one house has been the hardest part of it all. I can't help it, inanimate things like a dining room table (bought at a garage sale years ago for ten dollsrs) or a pair of prints of Sandhill cranes (unfortunately housed in bubblegum pink frames that were okay there but not here) become part of me. They just had to make the transition.

Other beloved pieces that I just could not rationalize keeping (who needs two vintage tea carts?) found new homes and it was fun to see how pleased or excited the new owner was. It was kind of like sending your now grown up child off to a new job in a new city to a new life. I can't help but wonder about the Sunday dinner tables my mom's German China will grace (too good for every day, not fine enough for Christmas) or if the new owner will actually repair that loose rung on the maple rocker or ignore it as we did.

Dear husband had a chair that did not sell. I think he bought it at some kind of auction years ago. It  may have been called a bankers chair. Anyway, he put casters on it and used it as a computer chair for years, then it was demoted to the workshop. Time, neglect and environment left it looking pretty scruffy but it was sound and strong as a twenty dollar bill (used to be). When it did not sell at either garage sale it was added to a load of things to take to a rather nice thrift shop. After carrying in the coffee grinder, blender missing the knob, assorted unmatched pieces of flatware, three rubbermade turntables, a Martha Stewsrt cake plate, and other treasures, I asked the volunteer to come out and look at the chair. I was a little embarrassed by its appearance and not at all sure it would make the cut. After a short pause she admitted it had good bones and said they would give it a good cleaning so, sure, bring it in. We rolled it over to the door of their work area and I turned my attention to "looking around." Soon an excited voice filled the little shop. "Oh, I love this!" someone said. "Look, it even rolls. It will make the perfect chair for my office. Oh, there's no price on it. Is it for sale?"  The volunteer quickly came up with a price and the thrilled shopper paid and rolled out the door. As waves of regret washed over me, I said to the cashier "it makes me want my chair back!" :)  But I actually felt like a proud mother sending her offspring out into the world.

So that is where Willet has been. We now have three dining room tables in our not very big house and the bubblegum pink frames have been painted a tasteful taupe. The last excess sofa is sold, although the buyer is having trouble finding a truck to get it home. I have one more picture to hang, then I think I can put away my tools. I actually has time to sew a little yesterday. And made time in the wee small hours of today to reconnect here.

Back to rTSA, my right, operated shoulder has been perfect through all of this work. My left arm has been terribly sore but is feeling some better. I just need a week on a quiet beach in Florida for it to settle down. Oh! That's where I live!

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.