Getting Old: Not for the Faint of Heart

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you may remember that six and seven years ago, I had surgery on my left and right shoulders, respectively, for idiopathic adhesive capsulitis, aka “frozen shoulder.” That’s where, for no known reason, the shoulder slowly stops working and seems to happen more often to post-menopausal women. At the time, it was so bad I couldn’t raise my arm & had to bend over in the shower to wash my hair. But the surgery plus several weeks of physical therapy (ouch!) got me back to moving normally.

The surgeon told me they might re-freeze after a year or so and if that happened, he’d sedate me and manipulate the shoulder(s) to break up the adhesions. After two years, I thought I’d skated. Nope.

About three weeks ago, I started noticing pain in both my shoulders – right worse than left, naturally, because I’m right-handed. At first, I thought I’d just overworked them – I’m prone to that, especially in the spring when I’m cleaning up the garden and yard, then planting. But over time, I noticed my right shoulder wouldn’t work as well…getting something off anything but a bottom shelf in a cupboard became problematic – and painful. I recognized the symptoms, sighed, and made an appointment to see the surgeon again. Actually, his physician’s assistant.

That appointment was yesterday. Trying to stave off that manipulation or worse, more surgery, I got a cortisone shot in both shoulders and will subject myself to a week’s worth of painful physical therapy in the hopes that will re-stretch the capsule. If not, another appointment – this time with the surgeon, to discuss options.

In the meantime, I’ll be sorta quiet on social media – sitting at my desk typing, or even using the laptop as it was intended, is painful. That means no writing on the computer, either. 🙁 I’ve done the must do client work and that’s about it.

Getting old sucks!