I'd thought this would be my last visit to my shoulder surgeon this morning. There was my third post-op visit this long after the first shoulder got fixed. That's when we planned the second shoulder. This one was the same length of time after surgery for a final visit as one was after my other shoulder got fixed. But surprise! He wants to see me somewhere between 6 and 9 months after both are fixed - that's one visit, not one each - so he can evaluate my overall progress now that both are done.
Is there a difference in recovery? Any difference in procedure? Differences in my life which yield different results? Unless there is some kind of problem, I figure this could be more about what he learns to use in his next procedures than how I'm doing. Besides, I won't be fully healed from either until over a year has passed. Things are good. Just not finished.
I did demonstrate my flexibility for him in how well I could do (or not as it turns out) an old favorite arm move from my belly dancing days called the Egyptian Sun Sign. Arms extended down your sides, palms in. Go from straight down, to out in a circle at the sides, where you gracefully flip your hands to face up, to complete the circle up over your head. There hands smoothly face each other, arms and fingers straight up, palms touching. Each move is an undulation, one of the hardest simple things for some people to learn. For me it was easy.
Slowly bring them down along the front of you undulating the hands alternating their positions, until they are fully down, when you move them into some other position, or just repeat a sun sign. Depends who is choreographing. (In the classes I took, our instructor choreographed a group dance for each of our end of term recitals. We each worked out out own solitary performance. ) The entire move is slow, continuous, and sensual, not jerky. (I see modern videos looking like some modern American jazz fest.) I hadn't done it since my 30s when I had it perfected. A recent try a couple years back declared both shoulders incapable. I had to try it again now. There's hope of completing one properly with some work. They won't go straight up yet, but at their highest stick out forward. That would never do! But what a reason for regular home PT!
He sent his assistant in to schedule something for me as a final appointment. We all understand this is more of a reminder to set an actually keepable, final appointment, what with how life tends to change these days for all of us. Do you know how and where you will be in another 9 months? I don't. I can, however, make some major guesses about the weather. That kind of decision ruled when I chose shoulder #2, going for warm weather and easy clothing to fight with.
The 6 month gap puts us into February. Pretty easy to plan on ice and snow for a long drive, even longer since his practice is moving shortly, and the office visit will be nearly as far away across the metro as the surgery was. So we looked at 9 months. May sounds like a good choice. No ice likely on the roads. I don't mind the drive per se. I hate driving on ice when not necessary. Hell, I hate it even when it IS necessary. There are still too many Minnesota idiots out there who can't keep the thought in their heads that in the absence of friction, INERTIA ALWAYS WINS! The first major snow of the season usually sets a few of them straight... again... for a bit. But by February, any little thaw fools the fools into thinking they have traction back, wherever they go, and can stop on that proverbial dime even if that dime is stretched out for half a mile. Hey, I know my money doesn't stretch that far! Does yours?
Hmmmm, wonder if any of them are in finance, spending their days convincing normal people that money always grows? I can see the parallels in the thought processes, as well as the predictability of them being correct... not!
May sounds better and better. By then the idiots tend to rely on DUIs and texting to maintain their idiot driver status. I ought to have enough traction by then to get out of their way.
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