Tag: shoulder

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Good news about my shoulder

I met this week with a new physical therapist, and what a difference from my last physical therapy experience.

Of course, it helped immensely to learn that the “bone cyst” in my shoulder blade was actually a tumor. That led to receiving the appropriate treatment to reduce the size of the tumor, immediately resulting in a significant increase in my range of motion.

This physical therapist was also very thorough — putting me through a whole sequence of exercises and accurately measuring my range of motion along the way. He also tested for muscular weakness and other things I didn’t fully understand.

The wonderful end result was learning that my shoulder is completely structurally sound. In fact, there was never an injury — only a tumor!

The work now is to get the muscles re-engaged and then build back the strength that was lost through years of using my arm less and less due to the tumor pressing into the shoulder socket.

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Cheat sheets & logistics

You know the Oratorio is getting close when you’re working on cheat sheets; figuring out when the choir stands up or sits down; and sending out promotional blurbs.

And now that I can lift my shoulder again (whoohoo!), I’ll also be figuring out my flute playing logistics as well.

Exciting stuff.

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It’s working!

Today — after one full week of radiation — I was able to easily raise my arm above the shoulder for the first time in at least three or four years.

I never did have frozen shoulder; it was the presence of a tumor that was impeding my range of motion!

But who would have thought it?!?

Right now I’m appreciating radiation as a medical miracle.

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Feeling hopeful

Had my first physical therapy session today and came away knowing that my shoulder is not completely wrecked!

True, I don’t yet know the results of the MRI, but I now have a “stoplights” understanding of what it means to work (and breathe) through discomfort (a yellow light) versus stopping when I encounter acute or severe pain (red light).

I also discovered that there’s still quite a bit of strength there; I simply have to relearn how to trust it and build on it.

Yay!

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A day of new experiences

Today I had an MRI for the very first time (this has to do with my bum right shoulder, for which I’m about to start physical therapy).

Boy oh boy was it an enlightening experience!

For one thing, I realize how extremely rare it is that I go into something with absolutely no clue about what it is or what the experience is going to be like. I still don’t understand exactly what happened.

Even the questions threw me off balance, especially the one about whether there was anything in my body that I wasn’t born with. Of course, once I thought about it I understood they were referring to things like metal plates or screws holding a broken ankle together or any number of other lifesaving tools and techniques.

It’s just that I’ve never had anything of that sort done to me, so every time someone asked the question my brain did a momentary “what?” 😂

Bottom line? I realize how extremely fortunate I am to have gotten to the ripe old age that I am with such limited experience of hospitals and medical procedures.

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Ow! Tweaked again…

Shoulder less happy again; not sure why exactly. But can’t really type, except left-handed. So this is literally “all she wrote!”

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Message from my shoulder

It’s time to go on the record and admit that a part of me still believes anything wrong with my body will fix itself.

I guess it’s the downside of having been an extremely healthy person most of my life. That plus the fact that — as a freelance musician — I hardly ever had insurance, so I got in the habit of doing what I could and then trusting that things would resolve themselves. Which they mostly did.

But the truth is that I’m reaching the point in life where past actions are having some painful present-time consequences. Not to mention that some body parts are simply wearing out.

A concept that never occurred to me even once before age sixty or so.

I’m writing this as part of my process in facing up to the fact that my shoulder — which has gradually been hurting more and more for a few years now — is not going to magically revert to normal. I have to actually deal with it. Bummer.