My shoulder surgery went well. My rotator cuff wasn't as bad as it could have been and it was only a partial tear. The surgeon went in and cleaned my shoulder joint out (it was full of fluid and bone spurs) and shaved some of the bone off of the socket to make it bigger so that the rotator cuff can heal and not be injured as easily again.
When I went in for the surgery, the ansethesiologist put in a block. This is kind of like an epidural but in a very specific spot to block the pain. He went in through some nerves in my neck and injected the numbing medication. This numbing medication lasts about 18 hours. They also sedated me but because of the block they didn't have to put me out as deeply. Unfortunately the block did not work the way it was supposed to. It went up my neck and into my throat. It did not go down my shoulder. Fortunately, the light sedation they did was enough for me not to remember the procedure. When I woke though, they had not given me any pain meds since they gave me the block before the procedure as the block was supposed to prevent me from needing any right away. I liked the idea of little to no pain meds for the first 12 or so hours if the block had worked. It didn't work though. I woke up in so much pain. It was horrible. I can't even describe what it was like. The nurses in recovery quickly figured out what was going on and gave me four different types of pain meds over the course of half an hour. It was insane. Worse than the pain was the fact that my throat was numb and I couldn't swallow or breathe well. My vocal cords were also paralyzed on the right side. It was very uncomfortable and made me panic as I was first coming out of the sedation. They almost kept me in the hospital over night because I couldn't swallow well. We did finally figure out that I could swallow thickened liquids like applesauce, pudding, milkshakes, etc. They sent me on my way with plenty of pain meds and instructions to have lots of milkshakes and applesauce.
Recovery has been better than I thought it would be. There have been ups and downs but I can move my arm now and that's lots better then it would have been if it had been a full thickness tear. Six weeks sounded like a very long time not to move my arm!
Now time will tell if it will help my overall problems but the surgeon is certain it will help!
2 comments:
If there's a way for a medical procedure to go wrong you will find it. Holy smoke! Now, on to house hunting and selling.
Oh, what an experience! I'm glad you're getting some movement on the shoulder and hope that you feel 100% soon.
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