Dear friends,
I want to thank you for praying for my shoulder surgery last Friday. They started as scheduled at 9:30 and it took about 1 1/2 hours. I elected to have my arm numbed for 12-24 hours at the beginning of the surgery. That made recovery easier as there was less shoulder pain until it wore off. It wore off at 2:00 a.m. and I am grateful for those extra hours of no pain!
When Dr. VanderWilde got inside my shoulder he found that the rotator cuff was torn 90% rather than the 65% it looked like on the MRI from the end of June. It probably tore more over the summer with the move figured in and all the lifting I did. He said that it as good that some of it was still intact since that made the repair easier. He shaved off a large area of bone spur and also took out some inflamed tissue. Dr. V made a DVD of the camera shots through the othoscopic camera he used, and narrated the surgery for me. I have watched it twice. One of the tools looked like an alligator chomping away frayed tissue and the other was a round cylender that ground and suctioned bone, etc. Then I watched him put in the stitches to hold it all together.
I tried not to take pain meds today and see how I am doing. When it was time to do my exercises, I could hardly move my arm to do them, so I gave up and took the meds. I can't drive until I am off the pain meds at least during the day. Jesse doesn't mind since that means he gets to take the van to school. I am still taking lots of naps. The pain is managable with the medicine and Greg and Jesse are enjoying the crazy things I say when in this mode. My exercises include letting my arm hang and doing pendulum circles and "walking" my arm across the table. I go on Tuesday to have the surgeon take out my stitches and check my progress.
I got a call today from the woman leading my Bible study. One thing we discovered is that I knew her daughter in Denver. Her name was Melinda and she was in my breast cancer support group. She was the first of my friends to die from breast cancer. Melinda's mother and I are amazed at how small this world actually is.
Please pray for Laura. She is in the middle of transitioning to Baltimore, a new roommate, a new appartment, new job and is feeling really lonely. Thanks much! I will write again soon. Greg will be home soon and we are planning to go to new member class at church tonight. Blessings- Nancy
1 comment:
Hi Nancy,
This is Heng Hua.
Sorry about your arm operation.
any progress so far?
Hope you are feeling well day by day.
I got a new job three weeks ago and doing ok with this company. It's a small company selling ADSL modems and routers to the telephone companies.
I am doing product marketing associate in the company and since it is small, I have to learn some technical stuff at the same time, which is good for me.
I am thinking visit you during thanksgiving or Christmas vacations but since I am still in the probation period, not sure how many days I'll have at that point. Also, I want to check with you see if you are planing to stay in Spokane. :)
Keep praying for your arm and talking to you soon!
Love,
Henghua
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